Evaflowne
by Traitor of All Traitors
Summary: Shinji was presumed to have died in the Twelfth Angel incident…but he returns three weeks later, but he's not the same person as he was before. Older, scarred and aware of the sins of the previous generation, he aims to change the outcome of humanity's fate…but has no intention of staying around later. No, for him, only his home in Gaea is in mind at the end. For him…and Evaflowne.
1. Evaflowne

Creation began on 01-05-16

Creation ended on 06-14-16

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Evaflowne

A/N: Another unique crossover.

Asuka was about to have the life snuffed out of her by the Thirteenth Angel that possessed Unit-03. It had been three weeks since the loss of Unit-01 and the Third Child at the clutches of the Twelfth Angel; the remains of the Angel left nothing to salvage of the Eva and absolutely no trace of the pilot. As she saw the black Eva was set to bash the damaged Unit-02 into the next plane of existence, she thought about Shinji and how his pleas for help were her fault. If she could take it all back, she would if it meant having his help right now.

 _Sorry, Shinji,_ she thought.

Suddenly, a hole in the sky appeared, distracting the Angel from its assault on Unit-02.

Something massive emerged from the sky, unleashing a ball of green fire at the black Eva.

"Grraurgh!" The Angel howled in pain.

The entity that emerged from the hole in the sky looked like some sort of winged, dragon-like creature, but appeared heavily influenced by Evangelion Unit-01 due to its purple and green colors. It flew above the Angel and fired another ball of green fire at it, forcing it to its knees.

"What is that thing?" Asuka questioned.

-x-

"…It looks like…Unit-01," went Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki inside Central Dogma.

On the screens and monitors, the new combatant landed on a nearby hillside and changed its form, no longer resembling a dragon…and resembling an Evangelion. One that was extremely familiar with the paramilitary agency.

"It might be Unit-01," said Hyuga, surprised by the Eva-like combatant's appearance.

It did resemble Unit-01 to a large degree, but it was sporting features that weren't on the purple behemoth they had lost. It had spiked knuckles on its arms, wrist blades and reinforced knee blades on its legs, two smaller horns on its facial armor, and what looked like a pair of smaller arms and legs on its torso with a large, pink gem in between the upper and lower limbs. In addition, there was a large cape on its back, giving it an almost-majestic aura to it.

It raised its right arm up and removed something from behind its back. It resembled a Progressive Knife, but the bridge crew watched in awe as the small blade elongated into a larger, sword-like blade before the Eva-like combatant assumed a defensive stance.

The Angel got back up and charged towards the new creature, its arms elongating as it intended to jump the opponent and rip its head off.

But the new adversary showed an unpredictable show of force. It swung its sword and dismembered the Angel's arms and legs, sending it falling to the ground in front of it. Then, dug its sword into the ground and reached for the exposed Entry Plug in Unit-03's back, ripping it out of the Eva and then raising its right leg up to slam down on the black Eva's head, reducing it to pulp.

"Unit-03…the target…has gone silent," Shigeru uttered.

-x-

The Unit-01-esqued victor subtly ripped open the Unit-03 Entry Plug and exposed the young man inside it.

"Aaahh!" He gasped, looking worse for wear, looking up at the Eva-like monster that was holding him several hundred feet above ground.

Then, the behemoth slowly set the damaged plug down onto the ground and then knelt down itself. Something emerged from its nape, resembling an Entry Plug, but it opened up like a flower bud, spaying an orange substance into the air.

Asuka watched as the person emerged from the behemoth, and was shocked by who they were.

"Shinji?" She questioned, seeing an adult version of the Third Child climb out of the plug and scaling a rope down to the ground to meet the Fourth Child.

The man, if he was Shinji, looked like a younger, softer version of his cold-hearted father, but he lacked glasses, sideburns, a mustache and a beard, had a large, burn-like scar covering his left cheek, and his left ear sported an earring shaped like a serpent devouring its own tail. He was dressed in a blue, burnt shawl that covered him to past his waist, brown trousers, black boots, and had a gem-encrusted manacled on his right arm. His left arm appeared armored. A large sword was strapped to his back, heavily used and nicked all over.

"Good to see you again," he uttered towards the Fourth Child. "It's been a long time."

The Fourth Child, Toji Suzuhara, looked at the guy, and responded, albeit with sadness, "Shinji?"

"In the flesh," the man replied.

-x-

Misato awoke to the commotion around her, feeling like she had a headache, and finding her left arm wrapped in a sling. The last thing she could remember was an explosion and Unit-03 turning into an Angel.

"…We found another survivor over here…"

"…Lend me a hand over there…"

"Hey, Katsuragi," she heard Kaji's voice cut through the vocals of those around them.

"What happened?" She asked; she barely recognized her voice right now.

"Unit-03 had to be taken out as an Angel," he cut to the point of the most recent battle.

"What about the pilot?"

"He survived. He was lucky someone actually tried to save him."

-x-

She never showed it, but Rei Ayanami was surprised by the major changes of Shinji Ikari and Unit-01. It wasn't just their respective, cosmetic changes that had her concerned, but the fact that Shinji's left arm (once he removed his shawl and undershirt) was revealed to be an advanced prosthetic. He also looked more…damaged than he seemed before his first sortie.

They were all back at NERV HQ, where Commander Ikari demanded an audience with Shinji, who seemed to have a lot on his mind.

"Identify yourself," he ordered Shinji, who had revealed that it was pointless for a pair of guards to try and handcuff him.

"Shinji Ikari," Shinji confirmed. "Age thirty-three."

"That's not possible," went Sub-Commander Fuyutsuki. "Shinji Ikari was fourteen when he was declared MIA."

"Then I must've died when I was fourteen…but yet, I am very much alive…or I was more alive back there than I could have ever been around here."

"Back there?" Asuka asked on the bridge of Central Dogma. "Where?"

This older Shinji just summed up the response in one, simple word.

"Home," he answered, keeping it simple.

Nobody said it, but some of the people present had suspected that this man was indeed Shinji Ikari, but somehow ended up displaced by the destruction of the Twelfth Angel, wound up in another world with no way back to this one for over fifteen years, and was changed dramatically over time.

"My only regret was leaving the people that looked up to me when I made the choice to come back here," he expressed.

"And the Eva," Gendo pointed out to the changed Unit-01 that was now residing in the cages. "What happened to the Eva?"

"Evaflowne," Shinji corrected him. "My Dragon of Angels. It did as I was forced to do when I ended up where I was landed, and that was to adjust. Some bits it kept, but other bits were not kept as much."

"What?" Asuka gasped.

"If you need proof that it did so, then check the compartment under its core. It functions as a self-sustainable prison of sorts. I had to return the woman that was no longer necessary to Evaflowne."

"What woman?" Gendo questioned; his curiosity was piqued.

-x-

The heavily-modified Unit-01, or Evaflowne, was looked upon by the crewmen present, and they felt like it was ready to come to life at any moment and attack them. There was a compartment under its exposed core and watched as an older Third Child unlocked it with a sword, revealing its contents to everyone present, including Gendo Ikari and a surprised Misato Katsuragi. Inside the compartment was a woman draped in a over-sized, orange shawl, probably in her late-twenties or early-thirties, with an uncanny resemblance to Rei Ayanami, only her hair was a dark shade of brown and her skin tone was not as pale as the albino's.

Opening her eyes, the woman looked up at the people present, and at the older Shinji.

"Are we back?" She asked.

"No," Shinji responded. "You're back. You can step out now."

She climbed out of the compartment and stood barefoot on the umbilical bridge. She looked at Shinji and saw only contempt and anger projected at her.

"Yui?" Fuyutsuki asked.

"Yui?" Gendo echoed, surprised to see her as she was the day of the contact experiment. "How?"

Shinji reached into his shawl and took out a small pouch of gray leather…and threw it at Gendo's feet.

"Use that on any Eva that actually works, and you'd get the same result I did," he told them, and Gendo picked up the pouch, removing its contents: It was a small number of emerald shards shaped like small arrows or claws. "The people that ended up in them all get the restoration of their flesh and blood."

Yet, it seemed like Shinji was less than happy. In fact, it seemed like he resented Yui for some reason.

"Why?" Fuyutsuki asked.

"Because NERV…and other agencies just like it…are nothing more than depraved fiends," Shinji said.

-x-

Everything seemed unchanged since he had been gone for such a long time, even if it had actually been a little over three weeks. He was still older and a changed man. As he stood in his room, Shinji picked up his SDAT player…and sighed. Then, he looked at his left arm, remembering how he lost his original arm…and didn't wish to relive that experience a second time.

Outside his room, Misato and Asuka were trying to process what had happened no less than three hours ago. With the Angel, with the Eva…and with Shinji, who was definitely different from the boy they once knew.

"That woman was his mother?" Asuka questioned the purple-haired woman in the living room.

"There was barely any mention of his mother in his file when I first met him," she explained. "And did you see the look on his face. Unlike his father and the Sub-Commander, he didn't seem at all happy to see her again."

"And he said those shards he brought back with him are responsible for her being brought back. We should've tried them on Unit-03…or Unit-00."

"Why not Unit-02?"

"No way. Ain't nobody using those on my Unit-02."

-x-

"…He didn't want to hear any of what he called nothing more than depraved excuses," Yui informed Gendo and Fuyutsuki, depressed by Shinji's resentment of her. "He found out the truth…and now has his own agenda on how to end it all."

"What do you mean?" Fuyutsuki questioned. "He stopped the Angel that possessed Unit-03."

"It's not the Angels he's disgusted with," she clarified. "He's disgusted with all of us for keeping the truth to why everything has happened from him. His conclusion on rectifying the disrespect and disgrace that people have done…is to keep people from doing anything he finds too cruel. He knows about what the Eva was truly meant for…and will do all that he can to prevent their actual purpose before he leaves again."

"Leaves again?" Gendo asked. "Where have you two been all this time?"

Yui looked at him and uttered, "The people there called the place Gaea…but Shinji called it his home."

To be continued…

A/N: Here's the first chapter of an Evangelion/Escaflowne crossover. What do you think?


	2. Uncooperative

Creation began on 06-14-16

Creation ended on 06-19-16

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Evaflowne: Uncooperative

Ritsuko Akagi, with her head free of the bandage that did nothing to remedy the minor scar and concussion she had from the Unit-03 incident, stood in front of Evaflowne, wondering how it was modified so heavily and extremely in the nineteen years that the Third Child had, supposedly, spent in another universe. One of the things she found that was remarkable was that it seemed to be powered by a small core that made that made the Eva's previous one seem obsolete in size and efficiency. She was about to see if a crew could remove the armor from around the core…until she looked up at the behemoth's head, which looked as though it was looking down at her with a menacing expression.

"It's not safe to go near Evaflowne with scientific intentions," she turned to face Yui, who was dressed in medical garments. "It's nothing like the Evas, anymore."

-x-

"…Has any attempt been made to see if the Third Child will divulge all that he claims to know, Ikari?" SEELE 01 questioned Gendo in the next meeting.

"No attempt has been made," he responded.

"And the returned creator of the Evas?" SEELE 05 questioned. "Has she divulged anything?"

"Only what the Third Child now knows and intends to do."

"He is aware of the Instrumentality and seeks to prevent it?" SEELE 03 questioned.

"Does he not know that the Angels will attempt to cause Third Impact?" SEELE 10 added.

"There's nothing to indicate that he doesn't believe what he's been told, anymore," Gendo explained.

RING, RING! Gendo's desk phone rang, and he answered it.

"Yes?" He spoke. "I see."

He hung up and informed the council that another Angel was approaching the city.

-x-

This Angel was much stronger than the previous ones to appear. It was as massive as an Eva, vaguely humanoid, and unleashed energy blasts that eliminated any opposition that stood in its way.

-x-

"…There's no time to send the Evas to the surface," went Misato in Central Dogma, "so we'll position them in the Geo-Front."

"But Unit-00 hasn't regenerated its left arm," Maya Ibuki reminded her.

"Then it's up to Unit-02."

"Major, what about Unit-01? I mean, uh…Evaflowne?" Makoto Hyuga asked.

"Commander Ikari gave instructions that it not be sortied until we know what we're dealing with."

"Well, that's going to be a problem," said Shigeru Aoba expressed, "because it's activating on its own."

True to his words, Evaflowne, without any form of mechanical aid, was moving on its own and forcing the restraints of the cage to detach from what could be hooked to its body as it moved towards the catapults, causing the work crew around it to flee.

"What in God's name?" Misato gasped.

"Not God," she turned to face the older Shinji, who had spoken, holding a small, glowing gem in front of himself. "Mine."

He put the gem around his neck and walked off the command bridge.

"Stop!" Gendo, who was also present in Central Dogma, along with Fuyutsuki and Yui, ordered him, but Shinji just kept going until he was no longer there. "Stop him!"

But the bridge crew didn't budge from their seats; after they either saw or heard that this man was the Third Child and had a prosthetic arm to replace the one he no longer had, they didn't want to mess with him or try to get on his bad side.

"Ikari," he heard Rei Ayanami behind him.

"Don't stop me, Ayanami," he merely responded. "You wouldn't like the consequences."

The First Child stopped at hearing that; he seemed cold…but not as cold as Commander Ikari. He just wanted for her to keep away from him.

-x-

When Asuka saw the Angel levitate down from city above the Geo-Front, she also saw Evaflowne emerging from where a catapult was located, levitating into the air.

"Gott im Himmel!" She reacted, seeing the revved-up Eva unsheathe its sword. "What the Hell do you think you're doing?!"

As the Angel levitated downward, Evaflowne levitated upwards, pulling its blade back, and swinging it across the Angel's body, slicing it in half!

"Whoa," she shuddered, and watched as the Angel disintegrated away, core and all.

-x-

"Incredible," went some of the technicians in Central Dogma, left in awe of Evaflowne's power.

"It eliminated the Angel…in one attack," said Misato.

Even Gendo was left speechless to what he had just witnessed.

-x-

She couldn't yell at him, or anything to demean him for his actions against the Angel. But Asuka wanted to very much. It was just the way he showed up and ended the fight before it could even begin. And the way he was after getting out of Evaflowne; it was like he viewed the whole situation as a bother…and would rather be anywhere else but here where the danger was.

As she stood in front of Unit-02 in the cage, Misato came by and asked if she was alright.

"Did you see the way he dispatched the Angel?" Asuka asked her. "It only took him one swing of that sword of his."

"It was amazing," the purple-haired woman answered.

"But his emotions after the battle. It was like…he was disinterested in everything."

"That's because he is disinterested in everything. He…wants to return to that place he spent years in that he called his home."

-x-

"…If you're trying to intimidate me, you're failing," Shinji told Gendo in his office. "So I…disobeyed orders not to use Evaflowne, I defeated the Angel before it could cause further misfortune. Misfortune that I would've let you suffer from."

"Childish intimidation will get you nowhere," Gendo told him.

Yui and Fuyutsuki, who were also present in the office, were wondering if Shinji had anything else to share with them that his mother hadn't shared already.

"Then I'll say this," Shinji told him. "Dispose of Lilith…or the next time an Angel attacks…I'll do it myself…and you'll wish I hadn't."

"What are you talking about?" Fuyutsuki asked him.

Shinji looked at him with a frown, and responded, "You know exactly what I'm talking about."

Then, he turned to leave out the office.

"Stop!" Gendo ordered Shinji. "I didn't say you could leave yet!"

Two security guards came in and tried to stop Shinji, who simply threw them aside while breaking one guy's leg, defending himself.

Yui sighed as her son walked out, leaving the guards on the floor with bumps and bruises.

"He knows everything, so it's pointless to try and hide the truth from him," she told Gendo. "He takes the truth seriously. That's why the people of the place he ended up at on Gaea elected him as king."

"What? He's a king in this other world?" Fuyutsuki questioned.

"King, guardian, wise man, peacekeeper. Only thing is that he doesn't like to fight at all. He only does it because he has people he wants to protect, people that matter more to him than anything here ever could." Yui explained, but she sounded cryptic.

"You make it sound as though he has a family over there."

Gendo looked at Yui, who seemed saddened by such words.

"He does," she revealed. "And they're waiting for him to return."

To be continued…

A/N: Oh! I bet none of you were expecting that to happen!


	3. Light and Pain

Creation began on 06-21-16

Creation ended on 08-31-16

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Evaflowne: Light and Pain

More than half the time, Yui Ikari had a hard time looking at her adult son that wasn't as quiet or as easy to be around as he used to when he was fourteen. It was the prosthetic arm, the burns that didn't fully heal yet, the scars from the excessive violence he had to put an end to, and his emotional distance towards everyone he used to know. This included his resentment towards her. And she couldn't fault him for any of it, either; she and Gendo tried to manipulate him before he was even born, and their actions had a heavy, soul-maiming consequence for him.

And now, here she was, trying to talk to Shinji, wanting him to talk to her.

Shinji, having left the ruins of a building that was once a library, assisting in gathering the bodies of those that didn't make it to the shelters in the last attack, carrying the body of a little boy he pulled from the debris, and taking him to the truck that was being used to store the salvaged copses until they could be identified and returned to their families. His reasons for doing this being because he wanted to actually do something useful for those who were less fortunate; he didn't want to feel useless to the good people.

"Shinji?" Yui spoke to him, and he turned to face her after giving the boy's body to another man that wrapped him up in a sheet and put him in the back with the other bodies found.

"What do you want?" He asked her, clearly uninterested in having a conversation with her.

"I just want to talk to you."

"There's nothing to talk about."

"Yes, there is."

"Then you're the only one that wishes to talk about whatever it is you want to talk about."

"Shinji, can't we put this behind us and start over?"

Shinji sighed and responded, "No, Yui. I rather keep it distant. If there's one thing I have learned from our time on Gaea, it's that you are capable of anything except genuine honesty and love. You…you play the role of the caring mother…but we both know that Ummi is more of a mother than you could have ever been to one that has outgrown you…and I don't care that you're wearing a wire so that others can hear this. What I say is the truth from my point of view."

-x-

"How does he know she's wearing a wire?" Fuyutsuki asked Gendo in the latter's office.

"He shouldn't know unless he searched her," Gendo explained.

"I'm not wearing a wire, Shinji," they heard Yui say to Shinji on the transceiver device.

"And do you think I would actually believe you?" Shinji responded. "You know as well as I do that I stopped believing in anything people like you and your husband say a long time ago. I believe in what my heart, what's left of it, anyway, tells me, and it told me that you can't be trusted, no matter what you say or do. I gave up an arm to save my wife and children, and I'd give up my other limbs if it means seeing them again when this unnecessary vendetta with the Angels is done with."

"But you won't resolve it without what has to happen, eventually," Yui told him.

"Says you because you want the end of the world to happen," Shinji responded. "If I wasn't the merciful man that I am, you wouldn't be here right now to irritate me. However, Ummi is the only reason it was decided that you would be returned here, and you will never see her or our kids again."

"Yet, you don't know if you will, either."

Gendo and Fuyutsuki heard something rough occur and Yui yelping.

"Are you threatening me?" Shinji's voice was colder. "You're lucky I don't have my sword on me right now, otherwise, you would have another scar to go with the two Ummi gave you."

"Yui, get out of there," Gendo told her.

"Okay, I'm sorry, Shinji," she told their son.

"Go…go bother someone else with your beliefs and actually believes in them," Shinji told her, sounding like he was trying to calm down. "I gotta go help find more people that didn't make it and pay my respects to the deceased innocent."

-x-

Yui couldn't forget how Shinji's face looked whenever he lost his temper towards people he didn't like. He almost always looked like a deteriorating corpse because the blood drained away from his cheeks. She had to deduce that this was a side-effect of him having a prosthetic heart integrated over what remained of his natural one. Every time he lost himself to his emotional outrages, he became a violent-repressed man that really wanted to lash out without any type of restraint.

As she walked away, she saw him return to the ruins of the building and come back with another body of a child. This one was a girl.

-x-

 _Welcome to Gaea_

Shinji awoke from what had to be the most reinforced incapacitation he had ever experienced, and saw violence in front of him.

"What the…" He expressed, seeing large, humanoid machines much smaller than an Evangelion, probably eight-ten meters in height (he saw some that were probably close to fifteen meters in height), facing a large, flying serpent that was attacking them.

He could hear the people screaming as he saw them running away from the serpent. Men and women screaming for someone, children crying for their parents or guardians, and he saw people that looked like animals in many respects (mostly wolves, bulls and cats). Checking the Eva's power reserves, the young man had at least three minutes of electrical energy left…and felt like he had to do something to help the people he didn't even know beyond the fact that they were being attacked and probably driven away from their homes.

Unit-01 got up from where it likely fell and slowly approached the large, city-like setting that the flying serpent and the giant robots were fighting. Shinji made certain that every step he made the Eva take be careful, as to avoid stepping on the people that ran his way.

It was a miracle that, despite the Eva's audio systems being damaged (probably from however it arrived here), the people seemed to see that this thing that was bigger than the giant robots facing the serpent was trying to avoid harming them, running beside the buildings to give the purple behemoth some space to put its feet down.

Shinji saw one of the giant robots melted away by the serpent's fire, breathed out from its mouth, setting fire to some of the buildings, and took out the Progressive Knife.

"You're not an Angel," he declared to himself, "but I can't stand by and let you continue hurting these people."

-x-

 _The first injury I ever received from facing that dragon was getting my left arm broken,_ thought Shinji, looking down at his prosthetic replacement that he didn't receive until he was in his twenties, sitting atop the left shoulder of Evaflowne. _Even to this very day, they called the dragon Retribution. The people of the country it would periodically attack, formerly called Zaibach, had been the cause of much death and suffering over four-hundred years ago, before I showed up, and had since cast aside their previous ruler's beliefs, but had lost any semblance of an ideal worth believing in. They said I changed things when I arrived with Unit-01, that I was an answer to their prayers for salvation and hope._

He reached into his trousers' right pocket and pulled out an old, folded photograph he had with him. Unfolding it, he looked down at the image of what he did all that he did for. There was himself, shortly recovering from the operation to save what was left of his heart, a woman with ebony and emerald-colored hair and gold eyes, dressed in a blue dress with red manacles, and two small children, a boy and a girl, with ebony hair and blue and gold eyes, just like their parents, but in a form of heterochromia, with their left eyes being blue like their father's and their right eyes gold like their mother's. He then reached into his left pocket and pulled out a small, silver chain attached to a jade octahedron; his wife gave it to him before he left to return Yui to this dimension and preserve mankind's future without smashing people's souls together to remove any gaps that represented unhappiness or weakness. So far, the jewel hadn't changed from jade to ruby or sapphire, not even yellow, so he still had plenty of time to get back to Ummi, and he was hoping to get back home in time.

"We're still connected, Ummi," he sighed.

-x-

"…Whenever he's not with others, he's either by himself or with Evaflowne," said Misato to Gendo and Yui, looking down at Shinji from the room atop the Eva cage he was in. "Beyond that, I don't know what else to tell you."

"Does he ever mention having a family from this other world he ended up in?" Yui asked her.

"Hardly, but I've seen this photo of what has to be his family. Himself, a woman with black and green hair, and two children that look like them."

"He's intent of going back to them when he's done here."

Misato looked down at the man on Evaflowne and expressed, "I had a feeling that his return was only temporary."

"There have been three attempts to study Unit-01…or Evaflowne, as he calls it," went Gendo, "but for some reason, nobody can get close enough to it without getting a second-degree burn or worse. Nobody has died, but we can't fully understand how the Eva become this way."

"He did explain that it had to adapt as he had," Misato recalled. "It's likely this world they ended up in was more extreme than this one, which could explain his prosthetic arm and other injuries."

"He nearly died a few times over there," Yui expressed, getting their attention. "One of his most recent, near-death experiences was during an attack on his home by marauders that didn't view his beliefs on simple living…and got severe chest trauma protecting his wife. It's only because he had doctors versed in cybernetics that he survived with a prosthetic heart integrated into what was left of his natural one."

Misato shuddered and looked back down at Shinji, who was still looking at one of his jeweled trinkets that he brought with him. It was almost terrifying to know that he had gone through a lot of difficulty in his past, a past that they scarcely understood because he didn't speak much about himself to any of them. But to know that he had an artificial heart…and a family waiting for him to return home… She really wanted to feel sympathy for him.

-x-

 _To fall and rise_

The Guymelefs present and left to face Retribution witnessed the Eva stab the beast in its long neck and drag it onto a building where it started punching its head so that it couldn't spit fire or fly away. They hadn't expected to face a dragon much larger than any other dragon that had existed before…or one that carried a hatred against them for actions committed in the past over three-hundred years by their ancestors. And they didn't expect aid from a giant that just showed up after falling from the sky…or that seemed to demonstrate an unwillingness to harm the people when it tried walking around them to get to the fight.

Unfortunately, Retribution had the advantage of not being reliant upon some sort of external energy requirements, and knocked Unit-01 aside as it sustained its neck injury and felt like its head was about to fall. It shrieked and flew away from the ruins of Zaibach, now being protected by a new enemy.

The Guymelef pilots carefully approached the Eva as its back opened up and revealed the Entry Plug, which expelled its LCL and opened up to release its own pilot.

"Aah," Shinji groaned as he breathed in the fresh air he hadn't had in over fifteen hours.

"Oh, my God, it's a kid!" He heard someone say, looking down at one of the Guymelefs and saw their face.

"He drove the Retribution away!" Another man uttered.

Shinji looked at each of them as they surrounded him. He wasn't sure what they were going to do to him. A part of him was starting to wonder if he was just dreaming due to not eating for over ten hours.

One of the Guymelefs that resembled a armored knight opened up and revealed a man in a simple shirt and trousers, strapped in some sort of body brace (Shinji suspected that it was meant to keep the guy inside from accidentally falling out.

"Who are you?" Another man questioned him.

-x-

"Hey, Shinji!" Shinji heard Ryoji Kaji on the bridge in front of Evaflowne. "How are you doing today?"

Putting his family picture away, Shinji responded, "Go bother Misato or be bothered by Asuka, Mr. Kaji. I don't have the time to be bothered for unnecessary reasons or hidden objectives."

"Aw, come on, Shinji. Is that any way to treat a friendly face?"

"You're not what I would call a friendly face, Mr. Kaji. There will always be people that have hidden agendas. The governments, the secret societies, my parents. It never ends. It will never end. But it doesn't matter. It never mattered to begin with. And it won't matter later on."

"What are you talking about?"

"Like I said, it doesn't matter."

Kaji suddenly found that he didn't think this Shinji, older and scarred, hadn't had his own agenda and was far from being talkative about what he planned on doing. He then decided to leave the man alone and find Misato.

-x-

"…It's hard to believe, though," said Toji to Hikari and Kensuke at school the next day, still talking about the older, scarred Shinji Ikari that saved Toji's life. "I mean, he was declared M.I.A., and then he comes back, older and looking like he spent most of his life in another world beyond this one, and is very distant and…bitter."

"Whatever happened to him, wherever he ended up," went Hikari, "it must've took a heavy toll on him just to cope."

Across the classroom from the three, Asuka and Rei, as Shinji didn't come to school at all, being older and out of place among the other students, looked out the window and at the damaged city. Neither said it, but the lack of presence from the Third Child left them wondering if there were such a possibility of just going back to before the Twelfth Angel incident and preventing Shinji from getting sucked into the shadow body of the Angel and sent to another universe. It wasn't that they felt cut off from the guy, but rather that they just couldn't relate to him with him being older and… To them, it just would have been simpler if Shinji was fourteen again instead of thirty-three, with two or three prosthetic pieces and a disposition that left him estranged from his parents and unwilling to forgive them for whatever they did to him years ago.

Suddenly, their cell phones went off, and they answered.

"Yeah/Yes?" Asuka and Rei questioned, respectively.

-x-

The Angel that appeared resembled a ring of light, hovering over the mountainous terrain as it approached the city.

-x-

"…Have we tried persuading Shinji to stay out of this battle?" Ritsuko asked Misato in Central Dogma, observing the newest Angel as Units-00 and 02 were being prepped for sortie.

"He's not going to listen," Misato explained. "He's older and prefers to do things his own way."

True to her words, the entire bridge crew saw Evaflowne in the air, in the same form it was in when it arrived to stop the possessed Unit-03.

"How is he able to get it fly like that?" Hyuga questioned, never imagining something that used to be an Evangelion being capable of a semblance of flight.

"Do we have contact with the pilot?" Gendo demanded, displeased with the boy's disobedience.

"Yes, sir," Shigeru answered.

"Order him back to the cage."

"You can sit in a pool of lava, old man," they heard Shinji's voice over the intercom. "I'm dealing with this Angel…and the problem that still resides in your base's basement if you haven't dealt with it yourself."

Yui, who was on the bridge with her husband and sensei, sighed as Shinji meant what he said; if Lilith hadn't been dealt with by the time of the next Angel, he would deal with her himself.

"Shinji," she spoke up, "please, don't do this."

"Everything happens as it must," he responded, echoing her choice of words in a different tone. "And this is something that needs to happen…for the good of the people."

On the screens, they saw Evaflowne fly over the Angel, which suddenly changed from a ring into a noodle of light, reshaping into a type of spiral around Evaflowne.

"Have Units-00 and 02 ready to assist Evaflowne in case he is unable to get away," Misato ordered, watching the Angel continue to spiral around Evaflowne.

"Rrrrraaurgh!" They heard a strange, metallic growling noise. "Grrraurgh!"

-x-

Within the safety confines of Evaflowne, Shinji surrendered control to the Eva/Guymelef hybrid, letting it choose how to deal with the Angel. The core-like energist glowed bright pink as Evaflowne changed into its humanoid form, unsheathing its sword and swung it at the bottom of the Angel's light-like body.

Slash! The sword pierced through the body of light, causing the Angel to emit a shriek-like noise, almost like those of a bat's, as it changed from a spiral into a sphere-like cage that ensnared Evaflowne.

-x-

"…Permission to attack the Angel, Major Katsuragi," went Rei to Misato over the intercom, watching as the Angel had trapped Evaflowne.

"Permission granted," Misato responded, and Unit-00 raised its rifle up to fire at the sphere of light; if the creature was some sort of organic construct of light, then the pellet rounds should have some sort of effect on it that would harm it, just like the sword Evaflowne used.

Rei had to hope that the pellet rounds wouldn't cause harm to Shinji, even if there was a chance that it was unlikely to happen.

Asuka, in Unit-02, raised her pellet rifle up and took aim at the Angel, as well. She just needed one shot at the Angel. With her AT-Field spread out, there was little chance that the Angel could defend itself from her.

"Aaaaaaurgh!" The two pilots heard the Angel shriek again, seeing its body of light shine brighter. "Aaaurgh! Aaaaurgh!"

"What the Hell is going on here?!" Asuka questioned, confused by what was happening.

"It's Evaflowne," went Ritsuko over the intercom. "It's absorbing the Angel into itself."

-x-

 _A foreign guardian, a new king_

Once he had received medical treatment for his arm after his assistance in repelling Retribution, Shinji was shown around the ruins of the old Zaibach empire, which looked worse than it had been prior to his arrival.

"As you can see, we're at a standstill," the man escorting him explained the disrepair of the buildings and streets. "For almost four-hundred years, this once-powerful nation has been met with misfortune by the dragon we call Retribution."

"Retribution? As in punishment? Penalty?"

"Judgment. Ever since it appeared, it's been a sign of our undoing. For the actions made centuries ago by our ancestors."

"But that's terrible. It shouldn't be attacking you because something your ancestors did."

"Try telling that to Retribution. It's completely indifferent to what we do today. In its mind, we're no better than the people that came before us. The whole sins of the past or something like that, which I don't understand."

"I think you mean the sins of the father, sir."

"Sins of the father?"

"It's a term, an old one, that states that the people of the past that have committed atrocities have them carried on by the people of the present."

"Sins of the father, huh? But…is it only our fathers that are to blame for Retribution's attacks on us? What about our mothers? Don't they share some of the guilt?"

"Yes, they do."

Shinji wasn't sure why he decided to say that, but from what he had once read through the power of the Internet, both mothers and fathers that committed wrongs were equally to blame for the crimes committed against their children and their children's children. And he might as well as included himself as an example of the belief because of his own parents; he could no longer just excuse the absence of a woman that he had no memory of just because she was dead (as far as he'd been led to believe).

"We want to move past this all, but we don't have the means to do so," the man told him, and Shinji saw a cat woman nearby, cradling a little cat boy with a gash on his head; he didn't know for sure if the child was injured or dead. "With every attack, the madness escalates."

 _Just like with the Angels and Eva,_ he realized, seeing the comparison between the two situations. _Every attack just makes everything more difficult for everyone else._

And it was during that day, just because one of the fortunate survivors asked him a question about what he was going to do while he was here (since Shinji was unsure of ever getting back to Tokyo-3 and his world), the boy who operated a giant had taken his first step toward being the king these people needed.

-x-

The Angel had screamed its final scream as Evaflowne had absorbed it completely.

The bridge in Central Dogma were left in awe at what the enhanced Eva had done.

"The Angel's…gone silent," Maya declared.

On the screens, Evaflowne then levitated back towards where Unit-00 had emerged from the ground and entered the catapult system.

"What is he doing?" Hyuga questioned.

"Evaflowne is returning to base," Shigeru explained.

"No," went Yui, knowing what was going to happen next. "He's coming to tie up a loose end."

If he disposed of Lilith, then everything that the Angels (and the people that desired to end the human race) tried to achieve would be for naught. He would willingly leave all of mankind at an evolutionary standstill until they went extinct from a different outcome, and that would be that. No unity, no merging of all human souls. Just an endless cycle of a scattered existence.

"I'm ordering you to stand down, Shinji," she heard Gendo say to their son over the intercom.

"I'm afraid I'm not going to obey that order," Shinji responded, just as Evaflowne came back to the cages and bypassing the security sections that were meant to halt unwanted advances deeper into the base. "If anyone says differently, I say this is because no one else has the moral fortitude to do what is actually necessary."

"He's bypassed the blockades and is now heading towards Terminal Dogma," Maya informed the others. "What is down there that he's going after?"

"Something he clearly perceives as a threat," went Hyuga.

"Rei, stop him!" Gendo ordered Unit-00, who had returned to the cages and followed Evaflowne. "Do not let him get any further!"

-x-

 _"…Just remember, Shinji, that your family supports your endeavor to help the people you were separated from in the world you're from,"_ Shinji recalled Ummi's words from the day before he took Evaflowne and Yui with him back to the other world that, while some understood as Earth, most referred to as the Blue Moon. _"And we'll be waiting for your return. I do hope that you come back before I'm outnumbered, though."_

 _Oh, I will return, Ummi,_ he thought as he reached the final doors to the chamber where Lilith resided. _I will return to you and this will be nothing but a memory._

He had Evaflowne rip into the large doors and began pulling them apart to expose the chamber where Lilith was crucified and impaled with the Spear of Longinus.

"Ikari-Kun," he heard Ayanami behind him, but he continued with his agenda to remove Lilith from the equation that was mankind's survival. "I have orders to stop you."

"You didn't choose to be this way, Ayanami," he told her as the doors began to give in to Evaflowne's strength. "You say the Eva's your link to everyone, but it's a flawed link. No one can be connected to everyone. Even if you could, there's such a thing as spiritual privacy. Invading the personal space of any soul is a violation of the harmony within the spirit. And to have your soul smashed together with countless others and calling it eternal salvation for all of mankind, that is an irresponsible and unforgivable act upon everyone everywhere."

When the doors finally gave way to the enhanced Eva, Shinji took back up his sword and turned to face Unit-00.

"I don't want to fight you, Ikari-Kun," Rei told him.

"Then stay back and let me end this madness that should've been ended long ago."

"I still have my orders to follow."

"Ayanami…you know as much as I do that any order you follow has no moral logic behind it…and is from a man that can't be trusted."

Unit-00 slowly raised its pallet rifle up at Evaflowne, but didn't unleash a barrage of bullets at it. Its albino pilot couldn't find the will to pull the trigger.

"Oh, come on, Wonder Girl!" They all heard Asuka's voice as Unit-02 stepped up from behind Unit-02. "Just shoot him!"

Evaflowne raised its sword at the red Eva and waited for the first sign of hindrance from its red-haired narcissist.

"You do realize that if any Angel makes contact with Adam, Third Impact will occur and we're done for, Third?!" Asuka asked him.

"Except that's not Adam," Shinji retorted; ever since Unit-01 became Evaflowne, the enhanced bio-mechanical had done much that was never intended for it to do, including confiding in its operator many secrets and possibilities that weren't meant to be. "You want to know where Adam is, check the arrogant man's hands. You already know which one I'm referring to, Asuka."

"It doesn't matter. I still have orders, Third."

"I may have pitied you a lifetime ago, Asuka, but don't mistake my wanting to be merciful for hesitation. Stand aside."

"It's not going to happen."

Unit-02 then opened fire on Evaflowne, but was unable to injure the purple behemoth with its bullets, something that Asuka contributed to the fact that the Evas all had over ten-thousand plates of armor covering their bodies. So she had to deduce that Evaflowne's armor was much stronger than the standard armor.

Evaflowne then raised its sword up and unleashed a stream of green energy from its blade, right at Unit-02, forcing it to fall down.

"Unit-02 has gone silent!" Shinji heard Maya's voice over the intercom system.

But Shinji didn't lie about wanting to be merciful towards Asuka, and that's why he and Evaflowne simply de-powered her Eva, not damage it with her still attached to the mediocre nervous system. Then, he turned to deal with Lilith, ignoring Unit-00.

"Rei, stop him!" Gendo commanded the albino to act. "Rei!"

But Rei had to accept that there was a serious problem right now, and that was her inability to follow her order to stop Evaflowne.

"I can't do it, sir," she told him, and Unit-00 dropped its rifle.

To be continued…

A/N: Sorry to leave you hanging, but you'll see the fall of Lilith and Adam in the next chapter later on.


	4. Fallen Parents

Creation began on 08-31-16

Creation ended on 09-17-16

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Evaflowne: Fallen Parents

There were no security cameras in Terminal Dogma, so nobody in Central Dogma could see the gore that Evaflowne demonstrated on Lilith. Except for the cameras within Unit-00, as its pilot witnessed the brutality.

"My God," Hyuga and Shigeru gasped, seeing Evaflowne decapitate Lilith, followed by hacking it to pieces…and hacking the pieces into pieces.

Maya covered her mouth and looked away, unable to stomach the violence being displayed.

Gendo was infuriated by this. With Lilith dead, mankind was now at a permanent standstill. Even if he still had Adam, the scenario was for naught, regardless of which direction it went for whoever had personal plans for everyone else.

Evaflowne, once it was through reducing Lilith to bits and pieces all over the place, picked up the Spear of Longinus…and melted it in its hands, reducing it to molten pulp.

"First, the sins of the mother are only for the mother, and now the father's sins will be for the father only." They all heard Shinji say.

"You fool," went Gendo, "do you have any idea what you've done?"

"I know what I have done. The question is…what are you going to do by the time I come to sever your hand to rid the world of the abomination you had grafted onto it?"

Everyone in Central turned to look at Gendo, like he was the one that committed an atrocity that couldn't be overlooked or forgiven.

"You can deny it all you want, but we both know you can't lie your way out of this," Shinji's voice held a deeper layer of contempt for his father.

Misato looked at Gendo and noticed how he clenched his right hand. She was starting to suspect that this older, scarred Shinji…was not making this up about what his father had with him.

"Commander Ikari," she uttered, slowly reaching for her pistol, "show us your hands."

Gendo looked at her and responded, "This is ludicrous. You can't possibly begin to believe him."

"Show us your hands," she repeated, more forcibly this time.

"I will not," he told her.

-x-

Walking down the hall to Central Dogma with his sword unsheathed, Shinji, with a fierce determination to end this madness once and for all, didn't care if Gendo thought he could survive his son's fury, just as long as Adam, just like Lilith, was no more among them all and people could retake the world. When this was dealt with, he just wanted to show the world what Evaflowne was really capable of; the enhanced behemoth had shown the people of Gaea many times before…and he would show the people of Earth, the Blue Moon, the miracle of this Dragon of Angels.

"What are you, an idiot?!" He heard Asuka behind him. "You have no idea what you're doing! You disabled my Unit-02! What are you thinking?!"

He ignored her as he entered Central Dogma, right where Gendo was, right atop his disgusting throne, looking down upon him and everyone else.

"Babel," he said to Gendo. "It's all you really say now, you know?"

"You've doomed us all," his father responded.

"Have I really? Is that what you believe? I wasn't the one that decided he had the right to play God because he felt that God screwed him over years ago. That was you. I'm not the one that wanted to achieve a forbidden union between Adam and Lilith and reduce mankind to pulp. That was also you. Because of me, my actions, that won't happen. But…so long as you have Adam…so long as he continues to exist… I don't trust anyone, including you, that won't try to follow in your goal to achieve a similar outcome. Now, we can do this the easy way where you can still have both your…or the hard way where you lose one and become a handicapped bastard with a history of cruelty and other sins."

Nobody on the bridge, not even Misato herself, dared to go near Shinji as long as he had that sword in his hands. And the worst thing was that they believed the damaged man meant well, since they were kept in the dark about what was going on.

"Or the third option, where you're incarcerated for personal vendettas," Gendo countered.

"Incarcerated by who?" Shinji retorted, raising his sword up at his father. "You can say what you want, but you're not exactly in any position to escape or defend yourself from me. I don't see either your wife, your mistress or any lackeys coming to save you."

True to his words, nobody made a move to stop Shinji.

-x-

 _An incentive to return_

"Shinji," went Ummi to her husband as he put on his shawl before he put on his boots, "there's something I need to tell you before you leave to take your mother back to the Blue Moon and prevent the end of the people you knew from before you got here."

"What is it, dearest?" He asked her, turning to face her on her side of their bed in their room, and she handed him the jade octahedron from years ago. "That's the trinket your grandmother gave us from before we got married, when we were dating."

"Yeah, and you remember how it acted up before the twins were born?" She asked him.

"It's hard not to when it changed color every three months. Why?"

"I went to the hospital yesterday, and this is just in case you're in a space-time distortion or something…because pretty soon, we'll be outnumbered by our kids."

Shinji's face went blank…and then he looked at Ummi's slim waist, which seemed to be getting a bit on the pudgy side, and then looked back up at her face.

"Well, all the more reason for me to do this quickly and return to the people I love most," he told her, smiling as he went over and hugged her. "Does Hiroko and Taki know?"

"Not yet. I'm hoping that you get back before I have to tell them. They're still worried that they might never see their father again."

"As before, all the more reason to do this quickly return to the people I love most."

Ummi then kissed him and held him for what she was hoping would not be the last time.

"You come home, Shinji," she told him. "You come back to us, to me."

-x-

Gendo quickly withdrew his gun and aimed it at Shinji, despite the fact that Yui was present, because right now, he detested what his son was doing to him, depriving him of his goal.

But Shinji was faster, using his sword to cut his father's right arm, disarming him and causing minor bleeding.

"Aah!" Gendo groaned, holding his injured limb.

"Graurgh!" Shinji growled and decided to do this the hard way only because his father refused to be reasonable, and stabbed him in his right wrist, impaling him to floor behind his console.

Slice! The cut was quick and clean, and Shinji picked up the severed hand.

"How sick does one have to be to do what you did?" He asked him, removing the glove and revealing the presence of Adam. "How depraved can you possibly be?"

He showed them all the Seed of Life that Evaflowne had shown him and intended to do away with him so that no one else would suffer because of how he was exploited.

Misato was shocked to see Adam in the severed hand! The whole time, she had thought (simply because Kaji had shown her) the creature that was crucified in Terminal Dogma was Adam. Either Kaji lied to her…or he didn't know what it really was, either. She wanted to shoot the Angel with her gun until it and the severed hand were reduced to pulp, just a bloody stain on the ground that nobody wanted to deal with, anymore.

Shinji looked at her, sympathetic towards her suffering because of her father's work and the First Angel, hoping that by the time this was all over, she would be able to move on with her life.

"You give that back, boy!" Gendo demanded.

"Your hand or Adam?" Shinji questioned; he already knew that his father wanted Adam back, regardless of what became of his severed limb. "The hand, I might be able to give back…but Adam, you can kiss goodbye."

Then, like something out of a graphic novel, Shinji dug into the severed hand with his prosthetic arm…and carelessly yanked out the Seed of Life from it, dropping the hand and walking away with Adam.

"What are you going to do with that?" Ritsuko asked him.

"All that's left is to have Evaflowne dispose of Adam, and then nobody can bring about the so-called Third Impact…or Instrumentality, to be scientific." He told her.

"You're crazy," went Asuka, calling him out on what he was doing.

"No, I'm very sane. The difference between morality and insanity…is those that want to do right by others will do right by others…and those that want to benefit from an unjust objective will do whatever they feel is necessary to gain something from something so awful."

Asuka felt like she was talking to a wall with this older Shinji, like he was ignoring her in favor of something else that seemed more important than a conversation with her.

"Look at it this way," she heard him say, "when all is said and done, when Adam is disposed of, nobody will have to suffer because of Evangelions or Angels, anymore. Never again."

"And what makes you so sure of that?!"

He stopped, turned to face the redhead, and responded, "Because Evaflowne showed me. It wants the same thing. He wants to end the suffering…so we can both go home."

-x-

Even though there was no indication that the Angel threat was neutralized, several people were leaving their designated shelters. When they did, they saw Evaflowne, levitating into the air above the city.

Within Evaflowne, Shinji, having placed Adam in a spherical case and put in Evaflowne's left arm, could barely believe that it would all be over soon. How the Dragon of Angels had shown him another glimpse into the future, another window that displayed either the potential for hope…or a darkness that could be prevented if they both intervened. And how each glimpse was Evaflowne's form of communication, his way of saying that he didn't want the people of Earth, the Blue Moon, to suffer any longer because of the arrogance of a few.

 _The lifeless oceans of Antarctica will deteriorate Adam to nothing,_ Shinji thought as Evaflowne began to vacate Tokyo-3 at an unmatched speed. _And then, comes the grand design that Evaflowne will show the world._

The people below saw how the former Evangelion continued to rise high over the city before moving south.

-x-

"…Where is he heading?" Misato demanded, wanting to know where Shinji and Evaflowne were heading after they both vacated the city with Adam.

"South, Major," explained, Shigeru, ascertaining the exact cordinates Evaflowne was aiming towards. "It…it looks like he's heading towards Antarctica."

"Antarctica?" Maya questioned. "But there's nothing there."

Misato bared her teeth in grimace. She suspected that, since Antarctica was where Second Impact started and the Angels originated from Adam, it seemed likely, in Shinji's mind, Antarctica was where it was all going to end.

"Back to where it all began," she sighed. "What's his ETA?"

"At the speed he's going, he should reach Antarctica in about an hour. Maybe less than that," said Hyuga to her.

Gendo, left nursing his maimed limb, silently growled at how it was coming undone because of this older Third Child. Everything he had sacrificed to achieve Instrumentality was all for naught. There was no more Lilith, no more Spear of Longinus, and now Adam was being disposed of. Not only would SEELE be displeased, they would likely desire his head, as he was the one in charge of NERV.

 _Damn him,_ he thought, hating Shinji's actions. _Damn him!_

-x-

During the time it took them to get from Japan to Antarctica, Shinji thought of the people of Gaea, the people of the former Zaibach Empire that was crippled by Retribution and rebuilt and renamed by him during the end of his teenage years, the abolishment of many laws associated with the former empire and the night he lost his left arm. He looked at his left arm and opened and closed the fist; as the centuries past, the advancements in cybernetics became more streamlined, enabling people and even regular animals to have artificial limbs and organs that could function more efficiently than the original series of artificial ones that were now primitive and nearing obsolete usage. If he had time to spare once he returned to Gaea, he would undergo surgery to have the arm replaced with a streamlined version; he wanted to hold his wife and children without feeling like a threat to their wellbeing.

 _Evaflowne,_ he thought, leaning back in the Entry Plug as he felt a drop in the temperature, _I don't say this enough to you, but thank you for all that you've done for everyone._

The walls surrounding him shifted to show a vast meadow on a sunny afternoon. Near a small stream was Shinji, back when he was in his early-twenties and he was with Ummi, who was helping him walk on his crutches as he was recovering from a broken right leg. Beside the stream, kneeling, was Evaflowne, with a layer of gold coloring in place of its regular purple.

 _Thank you,_ he thought again.

The memory faded away and was replaced by the sight of the ravaged Antarctica's salty pillars and red ocean water.

"Time to end this," he uttered, and willed Evaflowne to open his left arm and cast the embryonic Adam into the lifeless waters, watching as the creature began to deteriorate at the cellular level. "Freedom from further disgrace for the Lunar Mother…and freedom from further disgrace for the Lunar Father. May you both know everlasting peace in the world beyond the flesh."

In the ocean, Adam, now reduced to a diluted wad of murk, was no longer among the living.

-x-

There was a blue pattern detected for just a brief moment, but then it was gone. This left NERV to assume that it was Adam before it was gone for good.

"He did it," Fuyutsuki expressed. "He made every way to cause Third Impact impossible now."

"What does that mean, exactly?" Asuka questioned.

"It means, we're out of a job," went Misato, feeling like a weight that was represented by the First Angel had been lifted from her shoulders.

"Are you ready to witness the miracle of the Dragon of Angels?" They heard Shinji speak over the intercom. "Back home, it was considered a grand act from the heavens. Not what was probably desired by those that wanted the end of the world, but can be viewed as a gracious redemption from the plague that was unleashed upon you over a decade ago."

"What is he talking about?" Gendo asked Yui.

"I…don't know," she responded; ever since she was set free from the Eva as soon as it became Evaflowne, she was unable to ascertain anything that Shinji might've known or intended…and he kept secrets from her.

Shinji kept secrets from…but he didn't keep any from his wife, who supported his decisions.

Suddenly, alarms went off like crazy.

"There's a shift in the ocean water levels!" Shigeru gasped.

"Rising?" Misato asked.

"No, they're…they're dropping."

-x-

Evangelions weren't capable of such a feat…but Evaflowne, powered by something much greater than a mere soul of humanity, was capable of what none of the people of Earth, even with all their technological marvels at their disposal, could even dream of achieving. With mere thought alone, Evaflowne pushed the Earth a mild distance away from both the sun and moon; the new distance from the sun would decrease the global temperatures by a substantial sum and the new distance from the moon would lower the global water levels, enabling land to be reclaimed. But there was more to this act than these. It was about a new start without starting all over from the beginning.

Shinji had seen what could've happened to everyone if everything had just happened in a predestined fashion, and knew it couldn't happen. Too many had already suffered enough from because of both the Angels and the people that knew of the Second Impact and did nothing to warn anybody. Even though it wasn't his responsibility, he had seen a lot of people die when Evaflowne showed him the past result of Second Impact. Mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, friends and homes, animals and resources, either maimed or lost for good. While the innocent lives lost were returned to the heavens, there were remnants of plant organisms that could return to life because they clung to the planet more than people could.

-x-

"…How is he doing this?" Fuyutsuki questioned, seeing many changes occurring at once on the monitors around Central Dogma.

"The planet's axis is returning to normal," Ritsuko informed everyone.

"Incredible," went Maya.

"No way," said Asuka, unable to believe that Shinji was able to do all this that he was doing right now.

But Gendo knew all of this was bound to get him executed by SEELE.

 _No Adam, no Lilith, no Spear of Longinus,_ he thought, fearing the worst for himself. _No Human Instrumentality Project, no Third Impact, no future for mankind._

Yui, on the other hand, as fearful of what Shinji could have done to them after he was done with what he was doing in Antarctica, wondered what their son was likely to do to them. Even though he could've just left them alone and return to Gaea, he could've also stayed longer and bring further discord to the people he knew were behind the Second Impact and make sure they were brought to justice.

"Ikari-Kun is…quite spectacular right now," said Rei.

"More like crazy," Asuka countered with her opinion of him.

-x-

Now, with the reduced temperature in Antarctica, the conditions were perfect for sculpturing the chilling waters into something more beneficial than an ocean.

"Show more of your miracles, Evaflowne," Shinji chuckled, watching as the enhanced behemoth raised its arms up and began flexing its fingers, looking as though it were preparing to lead an orchestra into a symphony. "The Symphony of Waters that become Ice!"

As the water levels continued to drop, Evaflowne made several large, skyscraper and pyramid-sized pillars of water rise out of the ocean, freezing into ice and shattering as they were smashed together into large, misshapen masses. It pulled up more water, freezing it into much larger pillars and smashing them together, creating more misshapen masses and creating a basic island, which got bigger as more frozen water was added to its mass. The island-like mass expanded until it was recognizable as a large continent of ice and snow, but it didn't stop increasing in its size and mass, even as it cracked and fractured under its immense forming, resulting in large mountains and cliffs. The celestial lights in the sky above Evaflowne gave it an ethereal glow, making it appear even more divine in its own way.

Now, more than ever before, what had once been the South Pole over fifteen years ago…was looking like it once again. A large continent and a small cluster of islands, both large and small, made from the very water that had nearly flooded the entire planet. Snow like freshly-made powder, ice thick enough to rival densely-made metal, and their icy foundations preserved under the waters of one of the coldest points of the planet.

"It's so beautiful," said Shinji as a tear escaped his left eye. "So beautiful."

With all that he had been shown by Evaflowne and all that they've done to preserve this world, Shinji was now certain that everything would be fine, even if there were several loose ends left untied by them. Whoever decided to build Evangelions could build them until the number of them was one-hundred and they still wouldn't be able to merge all souls in existence. They could even try to recreate Adam and Lilith from the remnants of their destroyed bodies, but they wouldn't get anywhere they wanted to get. He and Evaflowne had closed every possible door that could be opened to ending all forms of individuality and free will.

"Let all that exist today, tomorrow and for all time gaze upon the miracle of the Dragon of Angels, Evaflowne," he said.

-x-

"…It would appear that all we've spent over fifteen years to achieve," went SEELE 01 to Gendo during the next meeting with the SEELE council, five days later, "has been for naught."

"With this partial restoration of the planet, the ocean levels have decreased and the South Pole has been restored," added SEELE 10. "All coastal areas are being reclaimed."

"Even though there is still the loss of animal and plant life, the people are determined to move on from the ravages of fifteen years ago," SEELE 04 expressed. "They're calling it a miracle."

"Adam, Lilith, the Spear of Longinus, all gone," SEELE 08 yelled out in anger, "and it's your fault entirely, Ikari! You couldn't control your son, and he and his mutant Eva, formerly Unit-01, Lilith's only real descendant, ruined everything!"

Gendo said nothing. What was there for him to say?

"We would have you repent with your death, Ikari," SEELE 01 informed him, "however, that must be handled at another time. We wish to speak with the Third Child."

"That is not possible," Gendo finally spoke up. "The day after he did what he did against NERV and the planet, he and his…Evaflowne…disappeared into the Antarctic. No attempt has been made to find them."

"Then you will find him. He needs to answer for his crimes against this council, not just you."

To be continued…

A/N: Sorry to leave you hanging, but this will stop here until the next chapter. What do you expect to happen next?


	5. Old Links, New Links

Creation began on 09-17-16

Creation ended on 02-16-17

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Evaflowne: Old Links, New Links

It was incredible to be standing here after so many years of having bad memories of this place. The sight of the mountains all covered in snow and the night sky displaying the celestial lights. This was something that Misato Katsuragi, dressed in snow gear like before fifteen years ago, wouldn't have believed unless she was actually there.

The NERV base setup at the large expanse of land a week ago and a mile away from the naval carrier that was stationed in the water was tasked with one purpose and one purpose only: Locate the Third Child and Evaflowne and return them to Japan.

 _He does this, and suddenly, we're treating him like he's some sort of war criminal,_ Misato thought, looking out through a pair of binoculars at the expanse of snow-covered land between the base and wherever Shinji and Evaflowne could be hiding. _Shinji, where are you at a time like this?_

-x-

It would be another two days before Evaflowne was fully rested and was able to make the crossing from Earth back to Gaea, and Shinji could return to his family there, just as he promised he would when he was done here. As the enhanced Evangelion rested in its dragon-like form, its operator dangled the jeweled octahedron in front of his eyes, seeing it change from jade to sapphire.

"Has it really been three months since I left already?" He questioned himself; the sapphire coloration indicated that his wife was now out of her first trimester and starting into her second. "I'm coming home soon, Ummi."

"Grr…" He turned to face Evaflowne's head, seeing it move a little. "Grr…"

 _Either he's dreaming or just halfway into a dream,_ he thought, hoping it was just the latter, as the cave they were hiding in could collapse on them if Evaflowne suddenly developed a nightmare reaction.

-x-

"…So, you're leaving, too?" Asuka asked Hikari, who informed her of how her father was considering relocating his family to a less-populated city away from Tokyo-3.

"I don't know yet, but my father says to be open-minded about it," Hikari told her. "With what happened in the past and what Ikari-Kun did with… What did he call it? Evaflowne?"

"That's how he addresses it."

"It's just likely that it'll be safer to get away from this place in due time. Even Suzuhara's family is considering relocating after the revelation that the Earth has, more or less, returned to a stable condition. I mean, how do you explain the reclaiming of the coastal areas and the restoration of the South Pole?"

"He called it the miracle of Evaflowne."

"And it is, you know. Maybe the only miracle we'll ever know."

Asuka couldn't believe her choice of words. Not because it seemed unlikely, but because she wasn't convinced that, as quickly as Shinji had returned, stopped the Thirteenth Angel and saved the Fourth Child, destroyed both Adam and Lilith, two other Angels and put the planet back on its axis and undid the global flooding of coastal locations, that he would soon leave because he had a family waiting for him back wherever he ended up as a result of the Twelfth Angel, and for a long time.

"I'm sure he's just gonna reconsider his choice and stay longer," she suggested, wanting that to be true. "He still has to answer questions to which he has the answers to."

"But would he really do it, though? Would he just ignore his family just because some people demand an explanation from him?" Hikari asked her.

Asuka, despite her dislike of Shinji and everything he either said or did, found herself unable to answer that question.

-x-

"…The fact that he was able to restore a frozen wasteland that constantly changes, the Third Child has ample places to hide in the South Pole," Ritsuko informed Gendo of their lack of success in finding Evaflowne's operator. "But considering that he won't stray from the unit, he'll be in a large enough space to hide it."

"It is imperative that he's found and brought back for questioning," Gendo told her, and hung up after.

In his office, he looked at Yui and Fuyutsuki, both of whom had their differences and disagreements regarding Shinji and Evaflowne. While Yui found it unlikely that anything they tried would keep Shinji from leaving and returning to Gaea, Fuyutsuki didn't believe that SEELE would permit Shinji to simply walk away after he ruined the foundations for the Human Instrumentality Project by destroying Adam and Lilith. But Gendo just wanted the boy…well, man found and brought before SEELE to pay for his crimes against them and himself.

"Aah," he groaned, looking down at his bandaged arm; he was fortunate that his severed hand was saved and reattached to his wrist, but he was looking at months of rehab (if he lived, that is) before he would have any acceptable function in his hand again.

"He might not say anything to anyone if he is found before he leaves," said Fuyutsuki to him.

"When he is found," he corrected; he expected results, not excuses.

"Some of the people of the world feel that he has done better with Evaflowne. Half of the NERV personnel have already started resigning and the other half is considering leaving the city now that they're convinced the Angels will cease attacking them."

"If they're convinced the Angels will continue coming, they'll reconsider."

"But we can't control the people," said Yui. "If you manipulate people to do your bidding, you're no better than a tyrant. Shinji never did anything to control people. He takes all opinions, every consideration. He even attended the funerals of people that died from natural causes, asking who they were and what they did in their lives."

"How many people died during his reign as king?" Fuyutsuki asked her; if Shinji was such a good king, then the number of deaths had to be small.

"Thirty-seven men, forty-three women and eleven children," she answered. "If it's not old age, it's just sickness. Medical science is one of the few things that gets the attention where he lives. Treating illnesses and wiping out diseases instead of starting or participating in a war with other countries or kingdoms. He basically runs a kingdom that embraces simple living and pacifism. The only real protection they rely on against invasions is Evaflowne, their warrior deity."

"Don't they know that it's just a carbon copy of something else?"

"It used to be…but it isn't like the Evas, anymore. It's far removed from what an Evangelion is. A copy is often bound by the limitations of what was copied. Evaflowne has no limitations because it's not a copy of anything but a completely unique organism that has the best aspects of people's interests."

-x-

 _"The doctors say we're having twins, Shinji,"_ Shinji recalled Ummi saying to him as he slept inside the Entry Plug, dreaming about a memory of the earliest years of their marriage. _"Ooh! I think one of them kicked again. Feel right here."_

Then, straying into the unseen future, he saw Ummi by a small lake with the twins, her belly well into her third trimester as she read an old novel while the twins were playing on some docks nearby. He wanted to wake up before the feeling of him not being there took over his conscience, but then saw himself walking down from a hillside to join Ummi, his prosthetic arm looking more streamlined and less mechanical in its features; it appeared that the time spent away from Aratana Hajimari had allowed for further streamlining of various technologies that improved one's quality of life, and the new limb seemed better than his current limb.

"Even though you've been back for weeks, it still feels like you just got back," his dream wife expressed to him. "We've missed you very much."

"I feel like I just got home, too," his dream self responded, sitting beside her on her left. "It's great to be with you three again."

Ummi took his right hand and placed it on her swollen abdomen.

"Four or five of us, you mean," she told him.

Before his dream self could respond, he felt a shift in his body and the world of his dream darkened.

"Aah!" He gasped, waking up and seeing the world outside Evaflowne, who stirred from his slumber. "Evaflowne…have you recovered from the miracle?"

"Grr," the draconic Eva growled as he crawled out of the underground cave they hid in to recoup, spreading his wings as he began levitating off the snow-covered land.

"Let's return to Aratana Hajimari, Evaflowne," Shinji sighed, reaching for the controls in the seat. "Let's return to home."

Flapping his mighty wings, Evaflowne took to the sky above the South Pole.

Shinji could barely contain his joy at seeing his family and the people of his simple kingdom, his simple domain, a place he helped to pull from the brink of total destruction and back into existence.

-x-

"Found him!" A NERV worker shouted, pointing up at the sky and seeing Evaflowne's flying dragon form soaring up from behind a mountain.

"It looks like it's taking off," went Ritsuko, looking at the fleeing form. "Fire a flare. If that doesn't get his attention, fire a missile."

Misato was about to say that they wouldn't attempt a missile assault on Shinji unless communication with Evaflowne didn't work when the naval carrier fired a flare into the sky, igniting the dark grey clouds with brightness, making the purple behemoth stand out. She saw it twist and turn to where the flare came from and she suspected that Shinji could see their base.

"Do we have a communication channel open for him?" She asked Hyuga.

"Yeah, and he's opening his for us," he answered.

"What's the big idea?" Shinji asked.

"Shinji, you need to return to NERV HQ," Misato explained to him.

"I'm afraid I'm not going to do that, Misato. I only came back here to do one thing: Prevent the end of the world. Evaflowne and I did, and now we're returning home."

"There are questions you need to answer."

"If you want the truth to what was never shared with the public, let me drop the box. Literally, let me drop the box."

On the monitors, something small, blue and cubical detached from Evaflowne, falling from it and onto the ground.

"I hope you find all your answers to whatever questions you have," Shinji told Misato. "Give my regards to those that knew me. It's unlikely that we'll ever see each other again."

"Shinji…you can't possibly be serious."

"Would you really stop me from going home, Misato?"

The purple-haired woman found herself unable to answer him. She was just following orders (no matter how crazy they were), but the fact remained that this Shinji wasn't the same boy that NERV met earlier this year, the same boy that was exploited by his parents, fought several Angels and went missing in action against the Twelfth Angel. This was an older Shinji that spent most of his years in another world where he was a king than he spent his first fourteen years here in this one, and had done the impossible that no one else had been able to do, and that was end the conflict between the Angels and the human race in just a few days.

"Just tell my parents I threatened to cut you up," Shinji uttered to her, and Evaflowne turned around to resume flying away.

"Fire a missile at him," Ritsuko ordered, and a technician executed the command.

"No, don't!" Misato yelled out, but it was already too late.

The naval carrier fired a missile targeted at Evaflowne.

"Someone doesn't know when to let up," Shinji sighed.

Fortunately, the missile was just two minutes away from Evaflowne, giving the Dragon of Angels time to fly away.

"Why doesn't he just deploy his AT-Field?" Ritsuko questioned.

"Maybe that's an ability Evaflowne no longer possesses," went Maya to her. "Didn't he say that it gained some new abilities but lost some of the previously-known ones?"

-x-

Shinji flew Evaflown over the ocean; he didn't want to endanger the restored frozen wasteland and cause the water level to rise up again like it had over a decade ago. Once they were a good distance away from the South Pole, he had Evaflowne fire a ball of green flames at the missile, obliterating it.

"I'll say this to those that try to stop me," Shinji spoke over the intercom system. "Don't try to stop me from leaving this world. The only Hell left is the one you choose to make for those that won't follow you to the end."

"Grr!" Evaflowne growled as he flapped his wings harder and flew up towards the clouds.

"Don't you dare leave, Shinji Ikari!" He heard Ritsuko Akagi's voice. "There will be consequences!"

"Your consequences can drown in the abyss," he told her. "Sayanora."

A bright, reddish glow within the clouds appeared for a few seconds…and then vanished, along with the energy signature of Evaflowne, indicating that it and Shinji had left this plane of existence.

-x-

"…He…he's gone," Misato went, surprised by the fact that Shinji actually up and disappeared. "He's really gone."

-x-

"…So, he finally left?" Asuka asked Misato as soon as she got back to the apartment.

"Yeah," she answered, "but he left a box full of information before he left to go back…to his home."

"A box of information?"

"A box the size of a van. The only problem is getting into it."

"I had a feeling he wasn't going to let us off easy."

"It's password-protected, Asuka. Not even the MAGI can crack it. Every time we fail to put in the password, it changes to something random and leaves only one hint that nobody seems to know anything about. Even Ritsuko was stomped by not knowing one of the passwords chosen by Shinji, and she's the polymath. One of the passwords' hint was, _'What is the strongest force known to people?'_ She thought it was gravity, but the box wouldn't accept that as the answer and changed into a different password requirement."

"But gravity is the strongest force known to people…unless Shinji wasn't referring to gravity or anything scientific. He must've meant something entirely different. What is the current password hint?"

"The hint is asking what is everything to one person…and viewed as trivial to everyone else?"

"And nobody is trying to answer that question yet?"

"They don't want to risk it being the wrong answer."

Asuka thought about it, and suspected that Shinji, in all his simple-mindedness, wasn't referring to the mind, which is everything to the person that has it…and nothing to everyone else. No, she felt he was referring to something else that he felt was or should be more important to people. There were moments where she saw him asleep…and heard him call out to three people that he had probably been dreaming of.

"He's not being intellectual," she expressed. "He's being emotional. The password is something of emotional significance. You can't look at the question from the perspective of a know-it-all. You have to look at it from the perspective of one that doesn't want to know everything that doesn't answer anything they're looking for answers to."

"Emotional?"

"Where's the box now?"

"At NERV HQ."

-x-

Gendo, Yui, not even Fuyutsuki dared to try and answer the password Shinji chose at random to protect the information he had to give to the people. Not that any of them tried to think of the correct password, that is. They felt that this older Shinji that shattered any other hopes for Instrumentality was clever and smarter than they had realized him to be.

"With age comes wisdom," said Fuyutsuki in Gendo's office, being an example of the seasoned wiseman. "The older you get, the smarter you become."

"Except Shinji might not be challenging us intellectually," Yui responded, though she wouldn't risk trying to open the box without causing the password to become something else that nobody would be able to figure out without having a complete understanding of how Shinji thought of these things.

"How are we supposed to crack open a box full of secrets when we can't even understand what the password is?"

Not even Gendo dared to answer the question. He was still angry about having his hand severed from him by Shinji.

Suddenly, Ritsuko came in and stood in front of them.

"Yes?" Gendo asked her.

"Major Katsuragi and the Second Child came in…and the Second Child opened the box," she explained to them.

This was quite a surprise for them.

"What was the password?" Yui asked out of curiosity.

"Family."

Even that was a shocker. It was such a simple word…and not of the scientists could figure it out.

"Family is everything to the one that has it and is only trivial in the eyes of everyone else," Yui realized. "Very clever…and very simple."

"Not so simple is the information being distributed everywhere," Ritsuko responded. "Once the box was opened, everything from phones to tablets to television stations started picking information that will undoubtedly raise Hell for NERV and the United Nations."

"Elaborate," Gendo demanded.

"Shinji's box is spreading the truth about Second Impact, the Evangelions, the Instrumentality Project, the Angels… He's even naming people, past and present, who were involved in everything that occurred, from misuse of authority, bribery, intimidation and disappearances of people. Somehow, he knows everything about NERV, GEHIRN, even SEELE."

Ring! Gendo's phone rang, and he picked up.

"Yes?" He asked.

-x-

"…Resulting in the death of millions more in the following months," Misato and Asuka heard this holographic display of Shinji revealing the exact cause of Second Impact, right down to what Misato's father had done, but enforcing that Mr. Katsuragi was just a man too wrapped up in the discovery of Adam to know what was really going on or that experimenting on him was going to harm the world. "…And Gendo Ikari, Gendo Rokubungi back then, left the expedition the day before it happened and took the research files with him, despite the fact that the project hadn't reached any completion. I wouldn't call him a survivor of the day half the world went away, not like Ms. Misato Katsuragi is, who survived because her father was fortunate enough to find a makeshift time capsule large enough to save one person…"

Asuka couldn't believe that Shinji knew all of this, even revealing that NERV dug into and even violated the privacy rights of everyone with a birthdate after Second Impact in order to have available candidates for the Evangelions should the ones they had be compromised by factors beyond their control, including the unpredictabilities of the Evangelions because they weren't so much in check when unleashed upon the Angels. He even revealed how there were select women that worked with or for NERV or its predecessor agency that either died or was removed from the picture of their children's lives because it was a requirement for children to pilot the Evangelions, which meant that the only reason Asuka was chosen for Unit-02 was because of her mother's death, not because she was the best or any other factors.

"…The majority of the personnel of NERV had no knowledge of the foul play their superiors committed over the years," Shinji went on, revealing the truth about Rei Ayanami and why she had no records or why no background checks on her existed, but clarified that she was also victim in the madness because of how people like his father constantly tried to play at being God.

"Can we turn this box off?" Everyone in the large room that housed the box heard Gendo's voice as he, his wife and the sub-commander stepped into the room, causing several odd looks and stares of accusation directed at them.

"Yeah, closing the panels that make up the top and sides of the box," said Shigeru to him. "However, it's pretty moot at this point. Everyone with a computer, phone, tablet or radio knows what happened. There's no denying what Shinji revealed."

"Anything he says could be false," went Fuyutsuki to them.

"What about your involvement being due to the fact that you were threatened for trying to reveal what happened to cause Second Impact?" Hyuga asked him. "Is that a lie?"

"This box of Shinji's is revealing details about select people even he didn't know about without the aid of Evaflowne. It even revealed how Evaflowne ended up the way it did by consuming a dragon and no longer needing to synchronize with Shinji…or anyone that it chooses as its pilot." Maya revealed.

Rei Ayanami, anticipating cold looks and being treated like a monster because Shinji revealed what she was, but noticed how Asuka and Misato looked at her like she was to be pitied, not condemned. The problem with her background was that she barely knew what was up with her existence, not knowing why she was made or why Commander Ikari placed such a measure of value on her.

"Half of you were playing God with that thing in Terminal Dogma!" One of the female technicians shouted at Gendo and Yui. "What the Hell were you thinking?!"

"It's no wonder your son kept his distance when he brought his mother back," one of the male technicians suspected. "He has to live with the stigma of what you did."

"Also a wonder why he wouldn't stay too long."

-x-

The cool air and bright sun felt good on his skin. The soft and lush grass and tall trees gave him ample shading. And Evaflowne's dragon form prowling through the greenery as it and Shinji made the trek back to Aratana Hajimari, the Kingdom of New Beginnings. While he was certain that the information he gave to NERV would be distributed across the planet, Shinji couldn't predict the outcome of the people knowing who was responsible for the death of half the world…and who was being used by those responsible for their own gain. All he could do was hope that if he ever made the choice to go back to the Mystic Moon (he started addressing Earth by its Gaea designation more than its true designation)…and he wasn't truly sure if he would go back, he wanted to have hope that there was a place to go back to if he did, that…maybe…he could show his wife and children where he came from that didn't give him any real happiness that he found here.

"Evaflowne… We did do the right thing by revealing the secrets kept hidden by the people that sought to replace the deities of the Mystic Moon…didn't we?" He asked him.

Evaflowne stopped walking and turned its dragon head to face Shinji…and nodded in the positive that what they did was the right thing.

"It felt strange to go back after being gone for so long. I keep looking at the jewel and hoping I haven't been gone too long. So far, it only seems to have been three months since we left, but I wonder how the others have coped with my absence."

If Evaflowne had the power of verbal speech, it would've told Shinji that it was sure they missed him deeply and would be relieved from his return. Instead, it just raised its right claw up and pointed towards their destination, just another hour away from where they were.

"Thank you again, Evaflowne."

-x-

At least it was just house arrest and not the real thing. At least not yet until they could decide what to do with them. The revelation of the truth being known to the world at large revealed a lot of corruption within various factions of the governments. The Japanese Ministry of the Interior, the United Nations, the police, the JSSDF, etc. And Yui and Gendo were among the many that were unable to talk their way out of the consequences that were waiting for them.

It had been at least two weeks since the agencies such as the CIA and NSA came to the Geo-Front and began to question everyone, not just those that the box Shinji left for them deemed the ones responsible for many of the unjustifiable acts committed. And it would take as long as necessary until the people tasked with finding all the people behind the madness, even if it meant that everyone had to be interviewed and interrogated ten times a day, seven days a week. Some of the workers felt that Shinji got it easy by not being there when this all went down, but couldn't really blame him for his role in revealing the madness that he had to have found out about because of Evaflowne (not many of the men and women could see it as Evangelion Unit-01, anymore) and before he returned his mother to here for personal reasons; in any way of saying such, the adult they saw or knew only as a fourteen-year-old boy just wanted to cease being used by his parents and anyone else that saw him only as tool, a means to an end.

"…Even though we have copies of the video and information that box of his distributed across the world," a male official spoke to Misato for the third time that day, "we just need to make absolutely sure that you had no role in any of this."

"I swear on whatever future I have left," she told him, "I didn't know about any of this. I thought NERV was tasked with just fighting the Angels. I didn't know about the Human Instrumentality Project or Commander Ikari or SEELE's agendas."

"And the boy? Or the man? This Shinji Ikari? Do you know where he is now?"

"He went home."

"Home?"

"Wherever this world he ended up in when he went MIA," went Asuka to her interrogator, who asked her the same thing.

"How can you be certain that he didn't have any role in this?"

"Someone like Shinji? He's not someone that would want to end the world and remake it. He's not even one to want to harm another person…except for his father, who had the First Angel grafted onto his hand. He cut the arm off and disposed of the Angel to prevent a repeat of the devastation that happened fifteen years ago."

To be continued…

A/N: I want to hear from you, the reader, what you feel about this idea: Should Shinji return to Earth/Mystic Moon later with his family to see the changes caused by the revelation of the truth?


	6. The Change of Seasons

Creation began on 02-16-17

Creation ended on 10-28-17

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Evaflowne: The Change of Seasons

Aratana Hajimari, the Kingdom of New Beginnings, was a country far removed from its predecessor country, Zaibach, after Shinji was elected to be king and his victory over the dragon known as Retribution. A person from Earth would have compared it to someone's interpretation of what the original Tokyo had looked like before it was destroyed in the Second Impact, but possessed aspects from its time before and after World War Two, seen through a sort of kaleidoscope or a series of cracked mirror shards, a blend between the old and the new, but to one that actually lived within the kingdom, it was just home to them and everyone else that chose the boy that saved their lives from Retribution and was just a large city that was remade from the remains of Zaibach using the power of Evaflowne. The tallest of buildings in the total of twenty dotted the kingdom's outer region on all four sides, spaced out and in the middle in the shape of a four-sided star of an "X" of sorts when viewed from above. And at the edge of the kingdom, facing out towards the vast ocean, was the palace that the Ikari family resided in, shaped similarly to those of Japanese castles, except more spread out among the coastline, complete with an expansive garden.

The people, both regular humans and humanoid animals, dressed in either modern suits and dresses associated with the lifestyle of those of Earth, or even the primitive styles of the neighboring countries on Gaea, all seemed to have no major concerns about even the most trivial of things. The adults worked as often as they did, from either at home or at sea or on the farmlands. The children ran around, laughing or playing games. The elderly watched the birds and squirrels and so on.

Suddenly, someone from the outer region of the kingdom rang a large bell to signify that someone had arrived.

A large, purple, cybernetic dragon had emerged from the dense forest just outside the kingdom, and the people realized that Shinji and Evaflowne had finally returned home.

-x-

Shinji wasn't expecting a parade of people to worship his and Evaflowne's return. It wasn't that he didn't appreciate the significance of being adored by the people they saved from Retribution, but being admired twenty-four/seven was not for him. While many of the citizens would bring offerings to show their appreciation for his selflessness, just a simple greeting or a hug or handshake was enough for him.

"We're back," he uttered, looking at the palace in the distance. "We're home."

-x-

Sitting underneath the branches of a large, cherry blossom tree, Ummi, resting her back against the trunk, watched as the twins, Hiroko and Taki, ran across the small bridges over the ponds, one of their favorite pastimes. She had worried about her husband in the time he was gone, whether or not if he was doing fine after taking his mother back to the Mystic Moon and restoring it back to its previous state before the great calamity that maimed it. While worrying wasn't good for her in her current condition, she really just wanted to see her soulmate again because three months apart was torment enough for her.

Suddenly, she felt a mechanical hand on her left shoulder…with a very familiar touch to its palm. It was followed by the familiar scent of a man that had an artificial heart to save what was left of his original one.

"Are you okay, Ummi?" She heard Shinji's voice as she turned to face him.

"Yeah," she answered, smiling as she cried. "I'm okay now."

She hugged him as he fell onto his back with her atop him.

"I'm so glad you're back, Shinji," she cried happily. "I've missed you."

"I've missed you, too, Ummi," he responded, happy to be home. "I can't believe that three months have passed here while only a few days went by where I was. As much as I should have been excited to be back there…I felt my resentment well up after facing another Angel to save an old friend. I'm glad that I saved his life, but I was angry that he was to be abandoned by the head of a disgraceful organization that selected him to pilot one of their behemoths. I just wanted it all to end so that nobody else would have to suffer because of them."

"Were you able to do it all, then?" Ummi asked him.

"Well, I faced three Angels, stopped my father from exploiting the powers of two primordial beings by removing them from existence…and restoring the planet to its previous state by putting it back on its axis and restoring a frozen wasteland that made up the planet's extra water sources. So…I am fairly certain that the only problems the people there will face are the ones they make for themselves, not the ones of the disastrous type."

-x-

There was a lot of unrest, a lot of arrests and a lot of trials for the SEELE organization and their followers, along with those behind NERV, the United Nations and every other agency that was in bed with the desire to end the world of mankind. While most were sentenced to death for their involvement, others were just sentenced to either concurrent or consecutive life sentences for their involvement. Other individuals, namely Kozo Fuyutsuki, were given minimum prison terms in minimum security prisons while those like Ryoji Kaji got probation (which likely had something to do with the fact that Shinji's black box of information stating that being separated from Misato and whether or not they would ever get back together was up to both her and fate).

With the loss of Adam and Lilith, there was no further need for the Evas or NERV, which left Misato, Asuka and Rei basically out of a job. Not that it really mattered to Misato, who was relieved that the First Angel was truly gone for good. The remaining Evas were to be dismantled and disposed of and all the research relating to them erased so that nobody could develop their own or be harmed by their potential misuse.

Even though the information proved reliable, the authorities didn't have an exact punishment for Yui Ikari, whose husband was sentenced to life in prison for his role in the operation to end the world, but one thing was for certain, and that was for the woman that was legally dead to rethink her life after losing her husband, her son and her dignity. After the discovery of her involvement and how far she was willing to go in her own intentions, nobody and their children wanted to be seen near her as long as she did anything that hinted towards her previous profession or being reminded that she had, more or less, walked out on her own son, who soon turned on her and exposed her as a sort of false prophet or something.

With the information provided by Shinji's box, Rei Ayanami was not persecuted for her involvement with the Instrumentality Project, which couldn't be achieved unless she had been fused with both Adam and Lilith, and was, more or less, as human as they all were, regardless of how she came to life. Even Asuka, as much as she hated her for personal reasons, couldn't look down upon her for what wasn't in her control to begin with.

The members of the SEELE council, who would never see the light of day, even in their next life, each agreed that this was all mainly the Third Child's fault; because Gendo couldn't keep a leash on anything or anyone that needed to be kept in check, everything they sacrificed for had come undone. And as Lorenz Kiel was taken to the gas chamber for his execution, his final thoughts were of how ludicrous it had been for the careful planning of an organization that had all the necessary pieces to achieve their grand design for the world be destroyed by the life of a boy that went to another one…and then came back with an Evangelion able to turn into a dragon and perform a grand miracle.

 _Shinji Ikari,_ he thought for the final time as the cyanide gas filled the chamber. _You fool._

-x-

Sleep eluded Shinji the night he returned from his three-month journey to the Mystic Moon, even when in the comforting embrace of his wife. It wasn't that he was affected with restlessness or something similar, like sleep apnea. He was just…deep in thought, which happened a few times in the last four years of his life. And whenever he was deep in thought, he did the one thing he often hated about himself, which was looking up at the ceiling of wherever he was currently.

His thoughts were of the good people everywhere, including those he thought he had stopped thinking about, like Asuka, Ayanami and Misato. He hoped the information Evaflowne provided him with would keep them safe from the fallout that was sure to come to NERV, SEELE and many other organizations being manipulated.

"You worry over everyone, Shinji," he heard Ummi say to him, whom he thought was asleep with her head on his chest, and felt her head move to meet his. "Do you want to talk about it? It might help."

She could always read him, no matter how hard he tried to hide it from her. Sometimes, she had greater insight on him than anyone else alive did.

"Don't get me wrong, I am glad to be back," he told her, looking down at her. "I just…worry that revealing everything to the world may not have the intended effect for many people that never did anything wrong to anyone."

"Your concern for other people's welfare is what makes you a good person, Shinji, not just a great king. You want for everyone to be happy, to do the least degree of harm, to see other possibilities when others don't or choose not to. Not many can or do choose to see the world the way you do. So…my question to you is…what do you want to do about the fallout aftermath?"

That was the question even he wasn't sure how to answer. Or rather, he didn't want to answer it just yet because he had been gone for a long time and was in no rush to go anywhere for the time being. He needed to be with his family.

"Let's wait a while," he suggested to Ummi.

She smiled and laid her head back down.

"How long is a while?" She asked him, willing to wait as long as he needed.

"Perhaps a year or two."

-x-

"…Asuka?" Misato spoke to the former Second Child as she looked out at the city from the hill sight where she brought Shinji after the Third Angel attack. "What brings you here?"

"This is where you brought Shinji after the first attack," the redhead expressed. "I guess I'm trying to wrap my head around whatever he thought about when he first saw the city. But it's hard due to him being older and… I still can't believe what he did to everyone. He…he changed everything with his exposing of all these hidden truths."

"You think he was wrong?"

"No, I… I'm not sure what to think of his actions right now. He revealed things I didn't know about…and probably would've been better off not knowing about. To think that he disappears for a while after the Twelfth Angel was defeated, presumed dead, then returns after it's revealed he ended up in another universe where he saves these people from a dragon that periodically attacked them and ends up…with someone and has a family…and is a king of his own country because they chose him…and he gets maimed and has an arm and one of his organs replaced with prosthetic ones… What do you do about what he's done? How do you really react to everything he's changed? And he up and leaves again when he takes his father down."

"You move on. That's about all we can do. And Asuka, the reason I'm here right now…is because we tried those crystals Shinji left us to use on the Evas. Your mother has been brought back…and she's asking to see you."

Asuka hadn't been ready to hear that. It had been a whole month now since these revelations were made, and NERV's disbandment had caused several uproars that included several complaints based on the exploitation of children as expendable soldiers (and it was mainly due to the fact that Toji's life was considered forfeit because of Commander Ikari). To know that her own mother was brought back to life after so many years inside the Eva, Asuka wasn't sure how to react. Was she supposed to be happy about it…or angry?

"If you don't want to face her right now, I can tell her you're indisposed for the time being," said Misato to her, trying to spare the feelings of the two.

"No," she responded. "I got a lot to ask her about."

Misato had seen the crystals work on Unit-02's core and what was left of Unit-03's core, returning to life Kyoko Zeppelin Soryu and Mrs. Suzuhara, the latter of whom was disgusted with what nearly befell her children because of Gendo. She was convinced that wherever it was that Shinji ended up, it was a blend between science and magic if he was able to have Evaflowne do what it could do and he himself survive with few pieces of his body less than intact. There was no other way of explaining all that had happened. One of the things she was grateful to Shinji, however, was the degree of closure she got from the revelation his box gave on how her father was used as a pawn in the instigation of Second Impact and how SEELE had manipulated his passion for scientific discovery to achieve their own ends.

A weak man, her old man might've been when he was alive, selfish, absent and completely unprepared and unfit for parenthood…but a victim, all the same. There was still hatred in her heart for his abandonment and neglect, but it wasn't all that much, anymore.

"Do you think he'll come back someday?" Asuka asked her, referring to Shinji.

"I honestly don't know," she responded; it seemed unlikely that Shinji would ever return to this world, since he did have people waiting for his return elsewhere, but part of Misato did have hope in seeing the former Third Child someday in the future. "Maybe."

-x-

A one-year minimum sentence at a prison for those like Kozo Fuyutsuki was considered a cakewalk for them, since it would go by fairly quickly…and there was no risk of riots or convicts killing convicts. But what the former sub-commander really hated was the lack of technological requirements for the prison he was in.

 _Hard to believe that their son brought down everything,_ thought Fuyutsuki as he sat at the small desk in his prison cell, looking at the daily newspaper detailing everything the media was dealing with out there still. _But he didn't want to be the person tasked with deciding everyone's fate or have us face impending doom…or allow those responsible to get away unpunished. So he gave us a different choice that we didn't choose. I don't know what is better now: The return of autumn…or the approaching winter? Still, Japan is best when it has seasons, so I should really thank Shinji for all that he's done. Everyone left can move on without fear of the end of the world or be prevented from knowing what was kept from them for fifteen years. Evaflowne, the Dragon of Angels. Truly a grand miracle._

-x-

 _One Year Later_

When they set aside their petty differences and made new bonds, people actually got a lot done within a year. Places that were believed to be uninhabitable because of Second Impact were being rebuilt and repopulated. Even places that were thought to be impossible to reclaim before it Second Impact even happened were being taken back, such as areas that had been decimated due to nuclear fallout. There was no degree of trying to prove one's superiority or wanting to move up in the world, just people of various races, ethnicities, cultures and locations working to rebuild the world they lived in.

Within months, the nation of Japan was heavy into further reconstruction and evaluation of buildings that could still be salvaged or had to be demolished and rebuilt, including the reclaimed coastal lands.

Everything seemed to be running as smoothly as possible for people…until…

FLASH! A light shot from the sky onto the ground where Tokyo Tower was being rebuilt…and a large, purple dragon flew out into the air, surprising everyone present.

They had heard the rumors about this thing, but they didn't think they'd see it. Not a single person thought that this…Evaflowne would return after being gone for over a year. Even as it flew away from the city.

-x-

"…Should we shoot it out of the sky?" A woman asked her superiors as the Air Force was trying to track Evaflowne.

"No," one of the men behind her answered. "We don't have the authority to launch a strike on this Evaflowne. Has it attempted communication with anyone?"

"No, sir," answered one of the men trying to keep track of it, "but I have a guess on where it's going right now."

"Where?" A woman demanded.

"It looks like Tokyo-3."

"Why would it go there?"

"Any heat signatures?" Another of the superiors asked; the new technology they came into allowed their newer satellites to pick up heat signatures from even a moving aircraft over thirty-thousand feet high.

"It looks like Evaflowne has…five heat signatures, sir," another woman revealed.

"Contact Major Katsuragi."

-x-

"What?!" A thirty-year-old Misato gasped, jumping up from her desk at home. "Are you sure? Evaflowne has returned and is coming to Tokyo-3?"

The purple-haired woman couldn't believe that it had been over a year since Shinji disappeared as a young teen in an Angel attack, returned a man weeks after…and left after ending things…only to return again. She never thought she'd see Shinji again, and if she did, he'd probably be a little older than he'd been the last time she saw him.

"How long until he arrives?" She asked the caller, and was informed that in less than half an hour, Tokyo-3 would be visited by Evaflowne all over again. "Oh…"

She hung up and called Asuka in Germany; after NERV was disbanded and the Eva research was terminated indefinitely, the redhead and her revived mother had returned to Germany to try and rebuild their relationship and family lives. It would probably be a good thing for Asuka to know that Shinji had returned from where he had ended up. But what confused Misato was the fact that Evaflowne possessed five heat signatures in it, meaning that there were at least five people being transported by Evaflowne…and she looked over at a copied picture taken from the previous year. It was of the picture Shinji had with him when he was here, of himself with his wife and two children, his reason for coming back here and then returning to this Gaea.

 _But why has he come back?_ She wondered.

-x-

Evaflowne had reached Tokyo-3 and landed right against the hillside where, as Unit-01, fought the Fourth Angel.

"Grr," he growled, laying down as his rider and passengers vacated his back.

Shinji, slightly older and sporting what looked like a more-regular arm where his prosthetic one once resided, inhaled and looked at the city. His wife, Ummi, stepping foot onto the grass of this alien environment that seemed similar to where she grew up, looked at the tall skyscrapers as she kept a tight-but-protective hold on the defenseless bundle in her arms.

"The air feels different here," she told him. "It feels damp."

"Did you really live here once upon a time, Daddy?" Their daughter, Hiroko, asked as she and her brother climbed down Evaflowne's left hind leg.

"Yes, Hiroko," said Shinji to her, looking at the buildings that hadn't changed much since he was away. "A very long time ago."

Taki ran over to Ummi and took notice of the brownish leaves on the trees.

"It looks like the city's experiencing the fall season," he told them.

That's something Shinji also noticed…and it put a small smile on his face to see that Japan was under the thrall of seasonal change like before his time. He looked at Evaflowne and raised his right hand against his side.

"Shinji, dearest," Ummi expressed in realization, "how can you be sure anyone you knew is still living in this place? We don't even have reservations."

Even if they were a royal family back on Gaea, here, they were no different from a regular, nuclear family. And Shinji was the only person who people know existed for fourteen years; his wife and children were complete nonentities without a claim to anything.

"I'll be honest," he responded. "I have no guarantee that anyone I knew is here. I'm not even sure how much time past since the last time I was here. Just gotta go for broke."

"But, Daddy, you always do that," expressed Taki to his father.

"Now, Taki, you know that isn't accurate," Ummi told her eldest son. "Your father just takes risks that he feels are necessary. He's not wrong for any choice that he makes."

"Is that a car, Daddy?" Hiroko asked, pointing to a blue vehicle that was moving along the base of the hill, stopping on the road.

"Yes, sweetie," Shinji told his daughter, looking at the car…and mentally swearing that he had seen that particular car many times before.

It stopped and a person got out of the car. It was a woman Shinji hadn't seen since he was last here to take down the men and women that were going to tear the rest of the world up to achieve their own goals. Another person got out of the car…and Shinji almost didn't recognize the girl because her blue hair was so long.

-x-

Asuka couldn't believe that she was grabbing a few days worth of clothes to catch a flight to Japan, just to see Shinji and find out why he decided to come back after a whole year.

 _It's not like he has any reason to care about what happens to us, anymore,_ she thought, zipping up her suitcase and stepping out her room. _I mean, when we thought he was dead, he ended up elsewhere…where he's a king of his own country…and married…with a family of his own. Why would he want to come back?_

"You don't think that he would be back here unless he had a hidden reason, do you?" Her mother asked her. "Based on his previous background and who his parents are, it wouldn't be considered an agenda if he was just here for a visit to see how things have changed since he was last here. If he had an agenda, it was to prevent the end of the world…and he did just that. No desire for a political position, no demands for a reward, not even a last request for something."

"But why visit?"

"To see all of you? People go various lengths of time without seeing other people and make the choice to wonder how they're doing or not."

Asuka sighed and then walked out of their house; with the revival of her mother and her father doing a fifteen-to-life prison sentence for his child neglect and affair with her doctor, Asuka and Kyoko were well-off.

-x-

It was the first time either had seen his wife and children…and it was the first time he had seen one of them with waist-length hair instead of the same style as his mother's.

"You're back," said Misato to Shinji, seeing that he had a different prosthetic arm this time.

"Misato," he greeted her as he bowed his head to her and then at Rei. "Ayanami?"

"Actually, it's been Katsuragi for the last six months," the albino revealed, which surprised Shinji. "It is good to see you again, Ikari-Kun."

They were at the base of the hill where the twins examined the Renault, fascinated by its shape and texture.

"Is this thing like a Guymelef?" Hiroko asked them.

"It doesn't look like it can support a Drag-Energist, sis," Taki told her.

"Their first time seeing a car?" Misato asked Shinji.

"Yes," he answered. "We don't have cars back home. Horses and monorails."

"If they see something new, they ask about it out of curiosity," added Ummi, sitting against the wall beside the hill. "You can't blame children for having a natural curiosity about many things or people that they see. _'Mommy, why is the sky blue?'_ , _'Daddy, why do people get older?'_ , _'Why are the sun and moon called the sun and moon?'_ If you have a question based on curiosity, then a person, parent or guardian should have the restraint and acceptance to answer the question being asked to the best of their ability…without lying or withholding secrets."

"Boy or girl?" Misato asked, curious at the bundle she was holding.

"Boy," she answered. "This is Seikatsu ("Life")."

The baby looked like a newborn, though he was a year old; he was one of the rare few on Gaea that aged a little slower than other babies did, but would grow out of it in another four years. In a strange way, he looked like a younger version of his father.

"So precious," went Rei.

-x-

Asuka was fortunate that the airports weren't closed after Evaflowne returned with Shinji, but a nine-ten-hour flight was enough to make her want to scream at how slow the plane was moving. Sometimes, she wondered why NERV had bothered to build their primary branch in Japan and one of their lesser branches in Germany. She hoped that, despite his brief time the previous year, Shinji would be around a little longer, to see how his miracle had affected the world that was once his home.

 _He doesn't even know that he might've restored habitats that were heavily condemned by radiation for years,_ she thought.

-x-

Ummi was impressed by much of the impacts made by her husband's actions with Evaflowne in this world. While the majority of the Tokyo-3 population had left to other cities and towns salvaged from the ocean around the country, including former classmates of his, it was to be expected, as not many people would want to live in a place that had been used to attract dangerous creatures on purpose. But people were now living better lives, free from the fear of the end of the world. And some of the people that did stay in the city mainly did so because they didn't have anywhere else to go and were trying to turn it into a place where one could live without the fear of death.

"…Is that a new prosthetic, Shinji?" She heard Misato asked him, looking at his arm.

"Yes, it is," he answered. "More work in streamlining the shape and function of artificial limbs."

"It looks nice."

"Thank you. So…you really adopted Rei?"

"Yeah. The revelation of her past exploitation…along with the life sentence that your father got for what he intended to do, Rei didn't really have anyone to look after her. And Kaji and myself wasn't going to happen again. Surprised?"

"That you and Kaji aren't together? No. That you're a mother? Very."

"You being a parent surprised me, and you have three kids."

Then Ummi noticed that Rei Katsuragi was staring at her as she was nursing Seikatsu.

"Yes?" She asked her.

"Are you…happy?" Rei asked her.

"I'm very happy. Are you?"

"I am happy to see Ikari-Kun again. He has changed many things."

"He's a man of great change."

"You're very pretty," went Taki to Rei.

"You're the second person he's ever said that to," said Hiroko to her about her brother. "He only ever said that to our mother."

"Thank you," Rei responded.

-x-

As the plane set foot on the ground, Asuka couldn't wait to get off and see Shinji. At least she was hoping he would still be around before he disappeared again. She took out her phone and called Misato's number, hoping she could keep Shinji from leaving until she showed up, just to talk with him.

-x-

"…Still hard to believe," Shinji expressed in Misato's apartment, looking at the different pictures of cities, towns and countries that were heavy in redevelopment after he'd been gone for a whole year.

"When people set aside their differences, they are able to get things done," Rei explained to him, sitting at the table across from him and Ummi. "What do people over…there do?"

"Agricultural development," Ummi revealed, "fishing, medical research, simple things."

"Simple…living?"

"Yeah…since people live good lives."

"And…your family is considered royalty?"

Shinji looked up at her…and then down the hallway to where Hiroko and Taki were looking at Pen-Pen, as they've never seen a penguin before.

"That's…what the people call us when I was appointed the status of king of Aratana Hiragana," he told her.

"That is…amazing."

"Shinji," went Misato, holding up her cell phone in her left hand. "I just got off the phone with Asuka, and she wants to know if you're going to be around when she shows up. Are you?"

Shinji nodded that he would be here to see Asuka; despite whatever animosity she might've still had towards him, he didn't mind seeing her again. In a way, it would've been a good thing to see her again.

To be continued…

A/N: Everything that has a beginning will often always have an ending to it.


	7. We carry on

Creation began on 10-28-17

Creation ended on 12-01-17

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Evaflowne: We carry on

He seemed so different from the last time she saw him over a year ago before he left after doing what he did to mend the planet back to its previous state of rotation, allowing for the people to reclaim their lost terrain and rebuild their cities and towns. It wasn't just the new arm and the sight of his wife and three children. No, to Asuka, Shinji just seemed to have something that he hadn't known anywhere else here because of the excessive attacks from the Angels or his neglect and exploitation by his parents: A sense of peace.

"Hey, Shinji," she greeted him on the patio.

"Hey, Asuka," he responded. "How have you been?"

"Good. Yourself?"

"Never better."

She leaned back against the patio balcony, looking at the inside of Misato's apartment, seeing Shinji's twins continue to play with Pen-Pen whilst his wife was seeing if their youngest son was mature enough to walk on his own yet. It was still hard to believe that Shinji had gotten married and had a family in the other dimension he ended up in, but Asuka couldn't raise her voice against what he did to survive, even if she had been initially miffed at how any girl would want anything to do with him.

"Nice family," she confessed, meaning it.

"Thank you," he accepted. "They mean everything to me."

"It's good to see you again, you know."

"Likewise with you three."

As Ummi watched their son try to stand on his own, she turned to look at her husband, smiling at him.

"Ga-ga-wah!" Seikatsu gurgled as he took a step forward, but not to his mother.

"Uh-oh," she said as most eyes were on Pen-Pen now, as he was who Seikatsu was trying to walk towards. "If he can take more than five steps, that's the farthest he'll have gone."

Hiroko and Taki backed away from the penguin as their little brother took his second and third step towards the flightless bird.

"Yap," Pen-Pen chirped in confusion, unsure if he should be annoyed or intimidated by the infant.

Seikatsu then took his fourth and fifth steps…followed by three more…and fell onto Pen-Pen.

"Gah!" He gurgled again.

"Looks like he likes you," Ummi told the bird, "and he's three steps ahead of walking on his own now because of you."

"Bravo," went Rei, applauding the baby for walking a little further than before.

-x-

Even if she knew that her son and his family were back in this dimension for a short time, Yui knew better than to try and approach them. There was the fear Shinji's wife displayed towards the very idea that she would hurt their children with her beliefs that had no place in Aratana Hajimari, since metaphysical biology and bio-engineering had no foundations in what used to be Zaibach, instead focusing on what helped people rather than cause misfortune. And even Shinji had been worried for their children if Yui had ever been left alone with them, which, when shared with an equally-concerned Evaflowne, who was just as distrustful of the woman who once existed as the soul of the former Evangelion, this was all that was needed for the choice to make sure Yui was sent back to the other dimension once Evaflowne had gathered the necessary energy to travel from one world to another and maintain a link to anchor the evolved Eva and its operator to the new point of origin.

 _Of course, I could try and contest this decision that Shinji and Ummi made,_ she thought, looking up at the sky, _but I couldn't change the way he looked when Evaflowne backed up their concerns about any potential influence I might've had on their twins. In the end, bringing me back here was more of a benevolent means to exile me from a place that had no need for something as extreme as Instrumentality or NERV._

It felt like exile to her, too. No Evas, no agency needed to study or create Evas, not even a legacy regarding the Evas. All she would be remembered for…is bringing her own family to ruins and creating something that was going to be used to destroy the world in one sense and remake it in another sense, and what relations she did have left were either in jail with no hope of parole or from another world and just visiting this one because of a choice made by a man that was once from here. Not really a legacy she was proud of…but one that existed only because she made a choice that carried repercussions she didn't anticipate on ever happening…and her son ending up in a place she never thought was possible outside of simple imagination…and she would simply fade out of memory in a few years to come.

-x-

"…So…Evaflowne? Really?" Asuka asked Shinji, looking at the dragon-esqued Evangelion that, against all logic, now stood outside Misato's building. "A mind of its own?"

"His own," he explained. "In place of the former soul that was my mother's, the soul of the dragon known as Retribution resides within Evaflowne. A lot happened when I fought Retribution to protect the people."

Even in its dragon form, Evaflowne had an aura of intimidation upon it. As it laid on the back hill behind the building, the enhanced Evangelion looked as though it could come to life in an instant and either take off or attack.

"He actually looks more powerful than an Eva," Asuka confessed.

"Only because he has the strength of people's hopes in place of some source of electricity or a nuclear reactor. Not that those would've been acceptable, of course."

"It defies all logic."

"Not everything relies on logic."

"I believe you. I've seen what the two of you can do."

"Ga-ga-wah!" Asuka and Shinji heard his youngest son as he hugged the redhead's left leg. "Bah!"

"Eh-heh-heh!" Ummi giggled, clapping her hands for Seikatsu. "He likes you and Pen-Pen."

Asuka looked at Shinji with a look of confusion and pointed down at Seikatsu.

"He wants you to pick him up," he explained, recognizing the look on his son's face.

"Me? But I'm not good with kids."

"Maybe you should let Seikatsu be the judge of that assumption."

Asuka gave in and bent down to pick up the baby boy.

"Wah!" Seikatsu gurgled, reaching out to hold strands of Asuka's hair…and put them in his mouth.

"Uh…" Asuka reacted.

"He really likes you, Asuka," Shinji told her.

"How do you and Ummi handle three kids?" She asked him.

"It's not easy, but we adjust. There's no instruction manual, no how-to guide, just one day at a time."

"But…it must be crazy sometimes."

"Only sometimes, but it's a crazy that comes with the role of being parents. Nobody's perfect."

"Gah! Wah!" Seikatsu went, as if backing up his father's response on nobody being perfect.

"I get the feeling that he understands us," Asuka told Shinji.

"He gets his perception from his mother. They all get their perception from their mother."

Then, simply because she was unsure of when they would just up and leave, Asuka asked Shinji, "It's none of my business, but how long will you and your family be visiting here?"

"Oh, we're likely to be around for at least a month or so," he answered. "There's no danger, so there's no reason to cut short their visit here."

-x-

Every day, it was the same nightmare, again and again. Waking up to six-by-eight prison cell with no window and only the meager necessities afforded to him. Such was the fate of any spending life without parole…and such was the fate of Gendo Ikari after he was exposed by his son's box of truth, revealing all that was kept hidden from the world he restored to its previous state and sentenced to solitary confinement. But today, someone from the world outside had slipped under the locked door to his cell a piece of paper that had something written on it. He picked it up and read it, discovering what was new going on out there in the world that would forget about him in due time.

On the paper, news about the boy he had abandoned and exploited for his own purposes had returned after a year away and brought his family with him for a month-long trip so that they could see the changes that occurred after the planet had been fixed.

A picture slid under the door a moment later, and Gendo saw the Third Child's family from another world, made bigger by the addition of a third child being cradled in its mother's arms. The picture was dated four days ago…and taken three days after this family had arrived in Japan.

Oh, how Gendo felt cheated out of his own goals by his son and the Eva that once took his wife from him. But there was nothing he could do about any of it.

"Shinji," he uttered in his cell, "you traitor!"

-x-

"Hmm?" Shinji went, distracted from the sight of the ball his twins threw at him. "Omfph!"

The ball hit him in his chest and knocked him off his feet.

"Daddy, Daddy," went Hiroko as she and Taki ran over to their father. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," he told her. "Taki, you threw harder than last time."

"But you got distracted," his son defended.

"I thought I heard someone say my name."

As the three resumed playing catch, they were watched by Ummi, Misato, Rei and Asuka from a nearby bench in the park they were in.

"I never thought that Shinji would ever have kids of his own someday," Misato confessed to Ummi.

"And he was gone for how long you thought he was dead? Two, three weeks? That's like, a lifetime to do many things that a previous life spent elsewhere didn't provide," Ummi told her as she held her sleeping son in her arms. "He really missed you three above most of the others he knows here. People that had some impact on him and his choices. Sometimes, he cried in his sleep at night. Not happy about all aspects of his past, but not looking to forget about those that were part of it."

"But he never said anything about it when he returned last year."

"He and Evaflowne wanted to prevent the end of this world; Shinji couldn't pretend that everything was fine when there were people out to end all living things and he had people that waited for him to come home. He did, however, had hope that you would all be able to move on when they healed the planet. He's glad you did."

"Question," went Rei, having a curious thought. "How did you and Ikari-Kun meet?"

Ummi looked down at Seikatsu and answered, "It was after the first time he fought Retribution. I was helping with everyone that got hurt by the dragon. Shinji was recovering from his left arm being broken and mended and I was replace his bowl of water when it got dirty. I found out that he drove the dragon away with his giant suit of armor, gave the people the first ray of hope they've had in centuries, thanked him for saving us…and then everything else just started falling into place. I didn't even have a crush on him back then. I just felt grateful that he helped us."

"He became your hero," Asuka stated.

"He became everyone's hero."

"Omfph!" They heard Shinji grunt as the ball hit him on the chest, knocking him to the ground again.

"Taki, you knocked him down again!" Hiroko complained.

"Oops," her brother expressed.

"I'm okay," Shinji told them as he got back up. "Maybe we should play with a Frisbee now."

"Frisbee! Frisbee!" Hiroko cheered.

The ladies looked on as Shinji and the twins switched from playing with a ball to playing with a disc.

-x-

It was quite a long trip for the family. At least two months instead of one month worth of excitement around the entire archipelago that had been recovering immensely well in one year's time since the planet was rejuvenated. During that time, Shinji had been able to show his family many of the nation's rural areas and scenery without trouble. And for Shinji himself, he definitely felt more alive in that time here than he ever had during his early childhood and early teens.

But, sadly, they needed to return back to Gaea. It was a minor heartache for the twins, but Ummi promised that they would come back at a later time…and Shinji backed up her promise with one of his own that he would stick by.

-x-

Less of a proposition and more of a gamble, but a choice Shinji never wanted to regret with Evaflowne when he spoke with Misato, Asuka and Rei prior to returning to Gaea. Just because the feeling of being home had switched over to a place an entire universe away from the one he used to reside in, that didn't mean he wanted to detach himself from the people that he would've given up his other few body parts to protect. As he walked down the streets of one of Aratana Hajimari's larger neighborhoods, the sound of a familiar voice committing to an old pastime was heard that made him chuckle in reminder of how the people here in the kingdom reacted to the visiting masses.

"Yeah! These drinks are the best!" He heard Misato as she was divulging in drinking beverages that, while hardly considered alcoholic, made her somewhat tipsy. "Better than that Yebisu brand that I used to drink! Hit me one more time."

 _Oh, that's going to bite me in the neck one day,_ he thought.

Shinji had made a proposition to the Japanese government that would permit the people of both Earth and Gaea to periodically visit one another for brief or extended periods. This would also help improve medical and energy research between the two worlds.

This…was at least four years ago…and was still stable.

"It feels like being in Tokyo," he heard a young woman say to someone else, "but more serene…and less noisy."

"Like a kaleidoscope of sorts," added another woman, indicating that they were visiting from Earth.

"Shinji?" The king stopped walking and turned to his right, seeing a blunette girl that appeared to have a tan. "How do you do?"

It was Rei, also visiting the kingdom, dressed in a summer yukata that sported a white flower theme.

"I'm doing fine, Rei," he answered her. "How do you do?"

"I'm doing great."

Suddenly, time just seemed to stand still for a moment, and Shinji, wondering why, felt an usual presence nearby. He turned around to see what it was…and saw a path of light leading towards a white horse with a horn on its head, carrying a young man that seemed to embrace violence…but had the most frightening feature to him: He looked just like Shinji when he was a teen, only detached from his emotions and everyone.

"Not now," he uttered to the king, "but one day in the future, your aid will be needed. It will be a matter between one and all. All I ask of you…is that you hold true to yourself and what you cherish above your own life. We shall meet again one day."

Then, just as the horned horse rode off with its rider, time resumed, as though it never stopped.

"Shinji?" Rei asked.

"It's nothing, Rei," he told her; he didn't want to worry about what wasn't going to happen just yet, since he wasn't sure wasn't even sure what was going to happen. "Just a brief daydream."

"About what?"

"How happy I am right now."

It wasn't really a lie, since he was very happy with the way things were now. He would sometimes see Toji and Kensuke during their visits (even though he had to warn them once or twice about eyeing Ummi simply because she was attractive to their eyes), he had spoken with the former sub-commander who had gone back to his previous profession, found out that a former faux-blond had developed an interest in alternate energy research, how the Class Rep. had been dating a jock with a large appetite, and now he was on his way home to be with his family, whom his children were playing with their favorite redhead at the moment. If there ever came a day where he would have to do something that was just as important as what he did in the past, all he hoped for were that he would have the aid of Evaflowne…and that they would have all that mattered most waiting for them in the end. But for now, the former pilot of Evangelion Unit-01, the first King of Aratana Hajimari, and a married man and father of three would simply do what he did with a happy heart: He would carry on.

-x-

Kneeling down in its chambers, Evaflowne had, at around the same time as its operator, detected the unusual presence that, while disturbingly familiar, didn't belong. Maybe it would be another year…or even five or ten years in the future, the Dragon of Angels would be needed once more to perform new miracles for people. But for however long that unknown time and its reason were, Evaflowne, its draconic soul touched to its very depths with humanity and humility, would stand by its operator, its king, its partner, to the ends of time…and carry on. In the end, they would all carry on.

 _Thank you, Evaflowne,_ it heard Shinji's across the kingdom.

In the silence of its chambers, a voiceless voice, no sense of a personality, no hint of gender, no trace of anything to ground it by, responded with the most human of responses.

 _You're welcome, Shinji,_ the voice said, and Evaflowne's eyes glowed green for a moment…and then returned to darkness.

The End

A/N: Well, I'll end it all here, but will say that this story, like several of the other stories written, interconnect with one another. Any guesses to who that guy on the horse was? And do you suppose Evaflowne will be back to perform another miracle or two for people? Happy holidays.


End file.
